After another day of close racing out on Biscayne Bay at the Star Bacardi Cup in Miami, the lead has changed again. Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl, 2000 Olympic gold medallists in the Star class, won their third race of the series to take the overall lead by 17 points from Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter.

Previous regatta leaders, Jose Van Der Ploeg, the 1996 Finn gold medallist and crew Diego Fructuoso, scored a black flag disqualification for starting prematurely and dropped down into third place overall.

Conditions in the Bay were fluky with a 40-degree wind shift on the second beat, which turned the fleet inside out, this added to a light wind of 2-4 knots, made for interesting racing.

RYA team GBR sailor and 2000 Olympic gold medallist, Iain Percy sailing with 1997 Etchells world champion, Steve Mitchell, got caught the wrong side of the shift along with many other big names, and finished in 35th position. As this was there worst result of the regatta it could be discarded, but they still had to count a 31st from day one, which left them with an overall score of 35 points, dropping them to seventh place overall.

Teammate and fellow Olympic medallist, Ian Barker and crew Ed Peel, were back out on the water yesterday after having to retire the day before when they were holed while lying in seventh place at the time.

Ian Barker commented on the day’s racing: “We were third round the windward mark, then a 40 degree shift on the second beat nailed us, we dropped down to about 30th and eventually finished 26th in 2-4 knots of breeze.”

With one race left to sail it looks like the 2000 Olympic Medallists, Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl, may have the better of the 99-boat fleet, but judging by how the racing has gone so far, anything could still happen. The Bacardi Cup concludes today and the team with the lowest overall score wins the Trofeo Bacardi, filled with rum.

Results (after day five, 5 races sailed, 1 discard)

1st Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl, USA, ((23),1,2,1,1) 5 pts

2nd Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter, USA, (10, (OCS), 4,6,2) 22 pts

3rd Jose Van Der Ploeg and Diego Fructuoso, ESP, (9,3,7,5, (BDF)) 24 pts

GBR results

7th Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell, (31,2,1,2,(35)) 36 pts

11th Ian Barker and Edmund Peel, (8,7,16, (DNF),26) 57 pts

32nd Andrew Hurst and David Munge, (21,(OCS),37,24,40) 122 pts

38th Michael Hicks and Patrick Hicks, (43,35,27,41,(57)) 146 pts