ICOYC News
Explosive Final Race Decides M32 World Championship in Cascais
The stage was set for a grand finale day of racing on the last day of the M32 World Championship. As all boats headed to the course, the top six boats headed out to the race area with clear intentions of spraying champagne and taking the trophy home as winners.
Clube Naval de Cascais (CNC) delivered perfect conditions with a solid northwesterly breeze of 16-20 knots. Teams experienced more extreme conditions during the week but for the last race it was blue skies and sunshine.
Going into the 19th and final race for the regatta it became clear that four boats — Bliksem with Pieter Taselaar,Midtown with Larry Phillips, Extreme2 with Dan Cheresh and Convexity with Don Wilson — were going to fight it out forthe Championship. During the day, all these teams had been on top of the scoreboard and single points separatedthem up to that point.
After a clear start it was all-on for a race full of lead changes, impressive tactics and some desperate moves. It was not until the final leg of the race that Convexity passed the boats in front and won the World Championship with just a single point ahead of the second-place boat.
Larry Philips on Midtown commented, “It was a great week of racing. It could have gone either way in a lot of races.We had a really good week, we sailed really fast and the conditions were great for us and we’re happy to have abronze medal [3rd]. Our goal was to be on the podium and today we were fighting for the 1st place and it all comes down to, not only to the last race, but to the last leg of the last race, which was unbelievable. I think all the fleet is inagreement that this is some of the most exciting racing we’ve ever done.”
Dan Cheresh on Extreme2 said, “It doesn’t get better than this last week. The Race Committee work and the levelof competition were remarkable, the conditions of massive waves were challenging, the teams were great, and wecame up short one point, but we are happy that we were in the hunt, with all coming down to the last leg of the lastrace. It was tremendous.”
“They didn’t make it easy for us,” said Don Wilson of Convexity at the award ceremony. “It was just great sailing,for all the boats to be so tight and to just come down to the little things is really amazing.”