The last racing day of the 2024 North American Championship had all teams sailing out to the racecourse with big expectations, three races were scheduled to start at 1000hs, the wind was light from the west.

After bobbing for about an hour the race committee attempted a start, but the wind rotated 70 to 90 degrees to the right, but very light to almost be possible to try the spinnaker on the way to the beat, the race was abandoned and the Solings start to follow the race committee. Another start was attempted and on the countdown it had to be cancelled and then teams had to way two storm cells to come and go thru, where winds increased substantially but always after each cell, would shift and diminish again.

Time was expiring and about 13:43 a new wind from North came and the Russ Sobotta and Barbara Vosbury managed a clean start with a nice breeze with 12-15 knots of wind. The first boat to round the windward mark was CAN 225 sailed by Peter Hall, Jon Bailey and Bruce Empey, followed close by USA 794 with Ed Trevelian, Alex Yakutis and Andrew Folz and in third GER 1 with Roman Koch, Alex Hasenclever and Max Bergk, fourth it had USA 853 with Matias Collins, Nic Breen-Franklin and Judd Vincent followed by GER 11 Michael Dietzel, Martin Zeileis and Hannes Ramoser.

The wind kept shifting to the right of the course and GER 11 with an early jibe passed USA 853, most boats went to the left gate, but CAN 225 followed by USA 794 and USA 853 on the right one, CAN 225 crossed missing some distance to the lay line, and in the crossing GER 1 got them , but it was USA 794 coming from the corner riding the gust which now rounded first, followed by GER 1 and CAN 225, GER 11 had USA 853 on the tale but this boat failed to hoist the spinnaker as you are supposed to due to the guy being under the boat and hooked at the rudder, it took some time to cut the line and prepare the kite again, and by a time it means half of the leg, USA ended up losing the position with CAN 230 sailed by Ross Findlater, Jim Mcguiness and Gord Devries.

The tie at the top place favored CAN 225 retaining the Title and the Sam Merrick perpetual against GER 1 with Roman Koch, Alex Hasenclever and Max Bergk and in third CAN 230 with Ross Findlater, Jim McGuiness and Gord Devries, and for the red fleet the Van Dyke perpetual it was time to USA 794 with the 1984 Gold medalist Ed Trevelyan , Alex Yakutis and Andrew Folz, the second place at this fleet USA 853 sailed by Matias Collins, Nic Breen-Franklin and Judd Vincent and in third another team from California USA 782 with John Walton, Alex Perry and Mike Udell.

Check your pictures courtesy @Felix Kling at:
https://www.felixklingpictures.com/soling-nac

Remember that races can be followed by Kwindoo at the following link:
https://kwindoo.com/tracking/37689-2024-soling-north-american-championship?race_id=43935×tamp=1715270760

Event sponsors:
Kwindoo – www.kwindoo.com – @Kwindoo
HUB International – www.hubinternational.com

Quelle: https://www.soling.com/article.asp?IdArticle=2668&Lengua=English