The Melges 24 Worlds finished as they started, with great conditions and a really, really competitive fleet. Winner Embarr was from Ireland, though there wasn’t much of the Irish luck involved in their win. The crew were professional in their approach and prepped on site in Miami. Embarr was consistently at or near the top, which is always key to winning a major championship. More on that below in Ian Sloan’s comments. The winner in the Corinthian (aka amateur) division was Taki II from Italy.
Our Northwest sailors sailed well and no doubt will bring lots of lessons learned back with them. West Marine Rigging (aka Airforce 1), skippered by Bora Gulari with our own Jonathan McKee called tactics, ended up fifth. The last race’s black flag disqualification and additional 75 points must have been painful, but no doubt the team was going for it in the last race.
Kevin Welch and the supercharged crew on MiKEY ended 16th (more on that below), Mike Goldfarb on Blue Moon with the Brink father and son combination on board were 28th, Duncan Stamper’s Goes to Eleven was 39th and the Arntson’s Nikita finished 65th.
While to some of us it seems like yesterday that the Melges 24 revolutionized the small one design keelboat world, the class can actually be considered mature and even threatened by newer designs. But this year’s Worlds prove that it’s still the forum of choice for professional, high octane one design sailing. And with the Worlds headed our way in 2018, the future of the class on the Salish Sea seems bright.
And now for the report from Ian Sloan and the MiKEY crew. To be able to come back from a DNF and finish 16th shows a lot of resiliency. Kudos. By the way, if any of you other M-24 sailors back from Miami are recovered enough to share some of your experiences with PNW sailors, send them to me and I’ll post them.
Ian Sloan:
The MiKEY team had its ups and downs at the 2016 Melges 24 Worlds. The best moment was winning race 1 on day two. We had a hard fought battle in the top 4 group, but managed to edge out the other teams on the final run to the finish. The worst moment would come that same day in race 3 when we got tangled with the pin end boat anchor rode, and damaged our keel fin. We retired from that race to assess and repair the damage back at the dock.
Overall the level of competition at this event was incredible. The best boats put a premium on starting well, out of traffic, and maintaining good lanes on the first beat.
If you could keep in the top ten or twelve boats around the weather mark, racing became more straightforward. If you were caught back in the twenties (or higher), it was incredibly difficult to find a way through to the top group. The winners, Embarr, have some great interviews on what made them successful, and its very interesting to hear their strategy. Their basic recipe for success was clear lanes, proper rig tune, and downwind boathandling/mode changes. They put in more time than just about anyone else, and it showed. They truly deserved the win.
The conditions put a premium on downwind speed and boathandling. Unfortunately, our team hadn’t sailed together much and we struggled downwind in the swell and chop. Upwind we could be as fast as anyone on the course, but the sea conditions made it difficult to maintain all the time. With 75 boats on the line, starting was also very important. The PRO would drop the middle boat in the three boat line back one to three boatlengths every start. I’m not sure why, but it incentivized starting at one end or the other, and often the traffic was very heavy at the ends. It became apparent that giving up some line bias in favor of a more clear starting area could reap rewards.
Miami truly delivered with the conditions. Temps were 10 degrees or so above average the whole week, which meant most folks were sporting shorts and tees the entire event. Some of our Canadian friends didn’t wear a shirt the whole week! Winds were almost always raceable. Thursday, day 3, saw only one race in somewhat unsettled conditions, but besides that it was planing or near planing conditions the entire time.
The next event for MiKEY is Key West Race Week, and after that Nationals in Charleston. Worlds are in Helsinki in 2017 and then in 2018 Worlds are right here in our home waters of Victoria BC! If you have ever thought about getting into the most exciting one design sportboat in the world, there is no better time than now!”
Ian’s shop is Anacortes Rigging in, you guessed it, Anacortes. If you’d like help getting up to speed with equipment or service, give them a call.
Ed note: Thanks, Ian, for providing the reports!
Here is a selection of day 4 photos from the Melges media crew. Gives a pretty good sense of the closeness and intensity.
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.