Only one race on day one of the 2019 Snipe World Championship

The 2019 Snipe World Championship took off today in Ilhabela, Brazil, with the first and only race of the day. The 70 teams from 11 countries arrived at the Escola de Vela Lars Grael, in the morning to get the boats ready for the most important event of the year for SCIRA, the Snipe Class International Racing Association.
 
A little postponement ashore and then everyone was off on the water canal that stretches between the island of Ilhabela and the cost of São Sebastião in the South East of Brazil. The wind was coming from the South at about 7-8 knots with a very cloudy skies.

A couple of general recalls and then racing was on with two Japanese teams first and second at the windward mark, followed by the Americans Asher Zittrer and Watt Duffy. At the gate the Japanese duo, Naoki Inoue and Masataka Kojima, were still first followed by Zittrer/Duffy and by the Brazilian team Rafael Gagliotti and Henrique Wisniewski. The order stayed the same up to the final leg that goes from the bottom gate to the finish, where the young American skipper Asher Zittrer took over the Japanese and was the first one to cross the line, claiming the first bullet of the series.

 
“I have been working and training with Asher for a year, but he’s done a lot more different sailing on his own” says crew Watt Duffy, “We have great communication and when Asher helms like he did today, we’re on fire and it makes it look like it is so easy, but it’s not!”

“Yes, we have great communication onboard, a simple and easy vocabulary” confirmed 18 year old skipper from Texas, “it’s very easy to sail together, we’ve been doing it for a while. We also like these conditions and hopefully there’ll be more of this tomorrow”.
 
There was a 20 minute wait on the water at the end of Race 1, to see if the rain would stop and the wind fill in again, but it ended with the hoisting of the AP flag over Alpha and with the Committee sending the 70 teams ashore with no more racing scheduled for the day.

The forecast for tomorrow is for more light to moderate breeze and cloudy sky, the plan is to make up for today’s missed race, so three races are on the menu.

TOP 10 after one race:

1    USA    Asher Zittrer    Watt Duffy 
2    JPN    Naoki Inoue  Masataka Kojima     
3    BRA Rafael Gagliotti Henrique Wisniewski 
4    USA    Taylor Scheuermann Maru Urban 
5    URU    Ricardo Fabini Florencia Parnizari 
6    USA    Jim Bowers Julia M Rabin 
7    ARG    Luis Soubie Diego Lipszyc 
8    JPN    Shigeru Matsuzaki Yuta Hattori 
9    BRA    Rafael Rizzato Gerald Wicks 
10    USA    Augie Diaz Lexi Pline