Star North American Championship - Horton cracks the code

3:27 AM Fri 18 Sep 2009 GMT

'Star North American Championship. Image - Lynn Fitzpatrick www.worldregattas.com ' Lynn Fitzpatrick

Star North American Championship report.

Andy Horton said, 'Could it get any weirder than that?' as he crossed the finish line of the first race of the day over a minute ahead of Alberto Zanetti and Gustavo Warburg (ARG).

In fact, it did get a lot weirder as the afternoon on Long Island Sound wore on. The weirder it got, the more the man who used to be hoisted up Prada's mast to spot wind and his Olympic Gold Medal and Star World Champion crew, Steve Erickson, distanced themselves from the rest of the fleet.

Horton/Erickson (USA) cracked the code of Long Island Sound's wind shifts and flushing current and walked away from Thursday's two races of the 2009 Star North American Championship with two horizon jobs. They crossed the finish line in the second race over two minutes in front of Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn (CAN). John Bainton, Jr. and Will Christiansen (USA) held the lead in the second race for about half of the five-leg race, but were passed by Horton/Erikson during a huge right hand shift during the second beat. In the meantime, Richard Clarke and Tyler Bjorn (CAN) clawed their through the fleet and pulled from sixth to second in the sixth race of the series.

With Thursday's two bullets Horton/Erickson and their Lilia inched ahead of Clarke/Bjorn and their P Star by one point. Clarke/Bjorn posted 8 points to their scoreline during the day.

Crews braced themselves for a cold and windy northerly and a swell rolling down Long Island Sound. They punched through lumps on the way to the starting area and waited for the wind to settle under the low-bottomed cumulo-stratus clouds. The clouds were like a vacuum sweeping back and forth. During the first race, teams who were in synch with the sweep to the left off the starting line were launched and the boats that went right hoped that the pendulum and the pressure would swing in their favor. Throughout the rest of the race, the current swung, the wind lightened and went right and then left: 60?, 30?, 350?, 20?, 350?.

The current swept the fleet over the starting line a couple of times before they had a clean start for the second race of the day. When a huge left shift came through, half of the fleet found itself overstood from the port tack layline. As they approached the weather mark, the race was abandoned. The fleet rendezvoused with the Committee Boat partway up the leg and then and waited for the wind to settle for another attempt at a second five-leg race.

The second attempt at Race 6 was well underway before things got funky again, but those who have been going fast and calculating the wind and current vectors in their heads or on their decks have a way of stymieing the fickle finger of fate rising to the top of the fleet.

Two more races are scheduled for Friday. Light air is forecast.

Preliminary Scores following 6 races with one discard.

1. Horton/ Erickson (USA) - 5, (13), 2, 3, 1, 1 - 12
2. Clarke/ Bjorn (CAN) - (16), 3, 1, 1, 6, 2 - 13
3. McChesney /Zwigelberg (USA)- 12, 1, 3, (16) 3, 4 - 23
4. Szabo /Peters (USA) - 2, 4, 4, 2, (12), 11 - 23
5. MacCausland /Murphy (USA) - 11,7, 5, 4, (15), 5 - 32

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by Lynn Fitzpatrick Worldregattas.com