Miami magic from GB sailors (From Dorset Echo)

Miami magic from GB sailors

9:07am Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Afloat News By Echo Reporter

THE first day of racing at the Rolex Miami OCR was a solid one for Britain’s top Olympic and Paralympic sailors.

Portland’s SKUD world champions Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell, and the Weymouth 470 duo of Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark got an early jump on the competition to lead their respective fleets in Biscayne Bay.

Rickham and Birrell, who last week claimed their fourth consecutive IFDS Disabled Sailing World Championship title in Port Charlotte, Florida, continued their form into this World Cup series regatta with a one and two for their opening day’s efforts.

The Skandia Team GBR pair lead USA’s World Championship silver medallists Jennifer French and Jean-Paul Creignou after the first day’s racing, with Rickham admitting they were relatively pleased with their performance.

She said: “We’ll take that. It was a good start – sometimes starting has been a bit of our downfall in racing terms.

“In the first race we definitely got a good start, got off the line well and managed to control the fleet pretty effectively and from then on we led all the way out.

“In the second race we had a horrible start, we were in last position and just dug in really and worked our way back up.

“Niki threw in a few tactical bits of genius and our speed was good so we managed to battle our way back up to second, which was ideal.”

After peaking for the World Championships to ensure the best possible start to their Paralympic year, Rickham admitted that this World Cup series event, although important, has a different emphasis in the bigger picture of their 2012 preparation.

“Miami is a process regatta for us – it’s just about cleaning things up, making sure that all the speed work we’ve done over the winter is coming together and just trying to race really cleanly,” she said.

“Obviously we always try to win at everything, but the fact is that here we’re just trying to make sure we’re racing as we should be, and ticking all the boxes because at this point all we really care about is September and whatever comes in between is just about making us go in the right direction.”

Elsewhere in the Paralympic classes, Helena Lucas and Portland’s Megan Pascoe – both still vying for selection to the Games – are poised on equal points in second and third places respectively after their first day in the one-person 2.4mR class, while the island’s Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas are in third overall with a steady 4,2 from the first two races to get their regatta underway.

Mills and Clark saw a flying start in the 470 women’s division, picking up a race win with a four-minute lead over the second-placed Dutch duo in their only race of the day due to the dying breeze. Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth were fourth – a position matched by Skandia Team GBR’s Ben Saxton and Richard Mason in the 470 men’s event, with Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell seeing a tentative start in 11th from their only race.

Weymouth Olympic champion Paul Goodison had a steady start in the Laser fleet with 3,1 seeing him in second overall, while in the RS:X Men’s windsurfing event, Weymouth’s Nick Dempsey and Elliot Carney are first and second overall after two races. Charlotte Dobson, also from Weymouth, is in third overall in the Laser Radial event, thanks to a third and an eighth from her two races, while Poole’s Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor had the luxury of a lay day for the first day of competition in the women’s match racing event.