3… 2… 1… Soubie takes over the lead

Argentinian skipper Luis Soubie and crew Diego Mini Lipszyc have been steadily climbing the ranks throughout the first four days of racing at the Snipe WH&O Championship. The pair held the third overall position after day two, moved to second place on day three and now at the end of day four are sitting as the current regatta leaders. With nowhere else to go up, Soubie and Lipszyc will now have to focus on keeping tomorrow’s scores low enough to hang on to their top spot.

It was a perfect weather day for sailing, but not a perfect day of racing for Raul Rios and Fernando Monllor. After two days in the No. 1 spot, the Puerto Rican pair weren’t able to break out of the middle of the pack on day four. With a 15th place finish in Race 7 and a 26th place finish in Race 8, Rios and Monllor fell to third overall.

Though today’s racing took place on the South Bay course, the stronger breeze provided some competitive edges and mixed up the scoreboard. At times, winds blew over 13 kts, but mostly stayed within 11-12 kts. The majority of competitors have more experience with bay sailing than ocean waters, making the two-course structure an interesting way to mix up the regatta. While the flat water of bay sailing demands fast lines to finish first, the ocean chop requires much more technical handling.

Four races have been sailed on each course, and depending on whether a team has a preference for bay or ocean sailing, tomorrow’s location announcement could hold some major weight. Soubie and Lipszyc have done exceptionally well in the ocean races with scores of 8-2-1-2, and should make the competition pretty nervous if tomorrow’s races take place on open water. Rios and Monllor had the best ocean scores with 1-3-3-4 and will be looking to reclaim their spot during tomorrow’s racing.

The third force to watch out for tomorrow is the Brazilian team Breno Bianchi and Flavio de Castro, who are back to where they started after day two, in second-place overall.

This regatta has featured some serious winning streaks, but as today’s scores demonstrated, all it takes are a couple of races to completely change the game. Also changing the game will be the second throw-out score, which will come into play after the completion of Race 9.

There are two anticipated races for the final day of racing tomorrow. The location will be announced the morning before racing, and the first warning signal is set to go off at 1200.

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Race Photos (courtesy of John Payne and Bob Betancourt)
Regatta Results