While most of us are here “enjoying” the cool damp and bracing ourselves for the holidays, a lucky few are in Miami throwing up rooster tails off their Melges 24 rides in the World Championships. Ian Sloan of Anacortes Rigging and Yacht Services is one of the lucky ones, sailing on Kevin Welch’s Mikey, and we’re lucky enough to have caught up with him mid-regatta. Mikey has, shall we say, a stacked crew with owner Welch joined by Sloan, Jeff Madrigali, Ross Macdonald and Serena Vilage with Jason Rhodes as the coach. Here’s what Sloan had to say after racing Thursday:
“The regatta has been stellar so far. These are really fantastic conditions and it’s amazing competition. The first two days were pretty windy and very big, choppy waves. Today was light moderate with smaller but still choppy leftover seas. We have struggled a bit with starts and downwind speed in these larger waves. When we’re hooked in we’re fast but just can’t seem to be hooked in enough of the time. A little mistake costs four or five boats at a time in this fleet. The number of different boats with first place finishes is evidence of that.
“We trained down here for four days prior to thanksgiving. It was a good bit of sailing but we never got really windy conditions during our training session.
“One thing is for sure, these boats reward good sailing and there is always room to get faster!”
Mikey isn’t the only Northwest Melges. Krak Arntson and his crew are there with Nikita, and Mike Goldfarb is driving Blue Moon hard with Mark Brink and his son David in the crew. Canadian Duncan Stamper is mid-fleet with Goes to Eleven. Pro sailor Matt Pistay is on Blind Squirrel. In third overall is Bora Gulari’s Air Force 1 with none other than Seattle’s all-pro Jonathan McKee calling tactics.
This Worlds marks a bit of a resurgence in the class, and exactly half the fleet (37/74 boats) are considered professionally crewed. The top Corinthian boat, by the way, is in 13th place overall. It’s also interesting to note how international the fleet is with boats from China, Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and others. Currently an Irish boat is in first while an Italian boat lies second.
Mikey is in 19th, Blue Moon in 27th, Goes to Eleven in 39th and Nikita in 63rd. Results can be found here.
We plan on hearing from Ian Sloan again, and I hope to hear from other PNWers in the fleet as well. There will surely be lots of stories, and none will be of cold, damp or holiday shopping.
Here’s just a sampling of photos, all of which can be seen at the Melges 24 Worlds website.
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.