FINAL DAY ON THE RACE COURSE WITH ERIC WULFF
On the final day of sailing for the 2005 Corum Melges World Championships James Spithill, who was leading after 10 races, woke up to what looked to be a light air day. When you are leading the world championships going into the last day, the last thing you want to see is a light air fluky day where you can’t predict where the shifts are going to come from and where the holes will develop on the race course.
The race committee did a good job of being patient and decided to postpone the race for a couple of hours. Around noon, the breeze started to fill in from a direction of 20 degrees with winds averaging 6-8 knots. It looked as though the breeze was going to be fairly stable after it filled in and the Race Committee decided to start the fleet.
The start was fairly clean with only a couple of boats over the line at the pin end. Early on the left looked a little favored but about a third of the way up the beat, the boats on the right started to get a lift. The lift kept getting bigger, and in the end the wind shifted about 30 degrees to the right. Gabriele Benussi who started on the starboard end of the line saw the shift early on and tacked out to the right to catch it. Benussi lead the entire pack out of the right and rounded the mark first. Regatta leader James Spithill and Dave Ullman, who was in second going into the final day, were working up the middle of the beat with Spithill keeping a loose cover on Ullman. With the right shift paying, Spithill and Ullman rounded each in the low 40s around the first mark.
Down the first run Spithill and Ullman worked hard to close the gap on Benussi in order to minimize the damage in case the race committee decided to start a second race. At the finish however the Race Committee singled that there was not going to be a second race and that assured Spithill and his team the 2005 Corum Melges World Championship trophy as they were able to throw out Race 11. Benussi ‘s impressive first place finish in the final race was a difference maker as he moved ahead of Ullman in the overall standings into second place. Dave Ullman who sailed a great regatta wound up third overall and Morgan Reeser took fourth. Gabrio Zandona from team Joe Fly sailed strongly in the last four races of the series and wound up passing Brian Porter on the last day to take 5th place.