Today’s U.S. Multihull Championship continued the success from yesterday with another five heats of racing.  The Fun In the Sun, Inc supplied AHPC Capricorn catamarans are holding up exceptionally well allowing for even shorter turn around times today as we work out the last few exceptionally minor bugs.

Today’s racing started out in a lightish and shifty 10 knots of breeze with our round 3 A-fleet.  The team of Watters and Burd were late getting dressed and pushed off the beach and were even later getting to the start line.  They were 35 seconds late to the start line after the gun went off as the other 9 teams tried to sort out the best lanes to A-mark.  Returning Champions, Casey and Williams, had difficulty getting to A quickly and rounded in 9^th position.  Watters and Burd, on the other hand, seemed to have pulled off a miracle and had already overcome much of their startline disadvantage and rounded in 6^th.  By the end of our race, all of the current standings leaders had not managed the shifty air incredibly well with Tomko scoring a 4, Pitt a 5, and Casey digging out from the back of the heat with a 6^th.  Watters and Burd had obliterated their startline disadvantage and won the heat!

B fleet managed to get another race where the teams of Gillespi, Ingram, and Olsen finishing in the top three and picked up a promotion to the next A fleet.  The mildly unstable 10 knots of breeze then fell to the sea breeze and we sat for about an hour while the new fresh breeze settled in.  Once we got things underway with race 4A, things got interesting.  After the start, we could see from the beach that an OCS flag was flying off the committee boat as Fairlie Brinkley’s sharp staff had identified at least two boats that were over early.  The racing continued and we watched the team of John Tomko and Ian Billings race a terrific race holding 2^nd place or better for the entire race and to finish in the lead.  We learned that Tomko and Whitte were both OCS which gave them last place finishes “flushing” them to the next B fleet race.  OCS penalties are very costly as the OCS teams, now relegated to B fleet after the 11 point OCS score, can score no higher than 11 points in the next round.

With a scheduled 6:30 dinner hosted by the Gulfport Yacht Club and with chef services by Tom Feckner (I’ve heard the menu is to be outstanding!), we decided to run two more races and call it a day.  The team of Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer scored a very impressive bullet in their A fleet race while Casey and Williams seemed to continue to struggle today with a 4^th place finish.  The standings now have Pitt and Shafer in the lead with 6 points followed by Casey Williams with 12 in second place overall.  The dark-horse team of Ken and Ian Marshack has been quietly recording great finishes and are sitting in 3^rd place with 13 points due largely to their consistency.

Tomorrow should bring more excellent breeze and another great day of racing.  It’s early but already the results pattern established on day 1 were completely shaken up on day 2 – who can maintain the consistency required to win a championship of this magnitude?  Perhaps tomorrow will give us some additional insight.