Second Sol Quals Close

The Second Sol Qualifying Races finished on Saturday, June 22. Twenty teams signed up to compete in the regatta, and each contributed $L5,000 to Sail4Life and the American Cancer Society as an Entry Donation. In return, each team received a free copy of the Patchogue II raceboat, generously provided by Jacqueline Trudeau.

The fleet of twenty contestants was broken into five ‘timeslot groups’  that raced against each other. The five winners then earned the right to compete in an upcoming Finals \Regatta that will be held in North Sea.

The timeslot qualifying rounds consisted of eight race heats for each group of four boats. The results were scored using the Standard Low Point System, using four discards. In other words, only a team’s best four races counted.

There are several advantages to using such a large number of discards in a SL sailboat race. Those benefits were clear in past multi-race events, including the J-Classic and ONE World competitions. On the other hand, four discards increased the risk of a potential tie between boats competing in any particular Second Sol timeslot group. Actually, as the races played out this past week, that never happened. In each group there turned out to be one team that clearly distingushed itself as the ‘best of the best‘ in a very skilled peer group.

Here are the scores for each team identified by contact person and sail number. Please remember that this was a boat race, not a skipper race. The person named below as the “Helm Name” was the contact person responsible for the team, but that person did not necessarily skipper the boat in every (or perhaps any) race. That’s a good thing; in most cases the race team members took turns at the tiller in different races; it was a cooperative venture. 🙂

If you take a few minutes and look at the table above, you will see that in each timeslot group there was one team that amassed a “perfect score” of 4.0, meaning that they sailed at least four First Place races. You can’t do better than 4.0 in this Regatta, but in all five groups there was one team that slam-dunked the races so skillfully they ended up with a perfect score.

That perfect quintet are:

02- Diamond Marchant- NYC1
05- Ariel Gallais- Moontear’s Lovecats
09- Ronin Zane- Grumpy Old Men Yacht Club
04- SerenityAeon Resident- Blue Marlins
15- Alain Gloster- Eureka

These five will now advance to the Finals Round, where a series of four fleet races will determine the overall champion for this year’s Second Sol competition.

Moontears Lovecats

NYC1

Grumpy Old Men

Blue Marlins

Eureka

(photos courtesy of Dil Spitz)