JOHN BERTRAND WINS M24'S AT 2005 ST. PETE NOOD

John Bertrand and his FUSION M crew of Scott Nixon, Andrew Scott and George Peet are the 2005 Melges 24 St. Petersburg NOOD Champions. They were also selected as the first team to ever accept the award for the very first Overall St. Petersburg NOOD Regatta! Never once, did Bertrand and his team score worse than third during the regatta. What was Bertrand's key to success? "Awesome sails, great crew!" Bertrand elaborated, "we came here with the idea to work on a few things. If we could win that would be great. I'd say we accomplished what we wanted to do. Tough fleet. We had a great regatta. The conditions were pretty challenging. We were able to get off the line and be in the front row most of the races, so we never had to scramble and take risks. It's really satisfying to do that, normally a couple of times you can get caught in the back and have to scramble for position. In this regatta we got out early and had speed."