Urgent Correction of World Ranking '07 Results - Lorrenzo Bressani Wins
An error in the calculation of the 2007 World Ranking Results has been brought to our attention and, having checked the facts, we have established that Italy's Lorrenzo Bressani and his crew aboard UkaUka should be declared the 2007 Melges 24 World Ranking Champions.
The error arose when the regatta reports from Novembre a Hyeres stated that Francesco Bruni (normally UkaUka's tactician) was helming the boat for that regatta instead of usual helm Lorrenzo Bressani. The points were awarded on this basis and as a result John Pollard and his crew aboard Excellent were declared the World Ranking Champions.
Last weekend we were contacted by Nigel Young and Jamie Lee in Key West who had fortunately noticed what they suspected to be an error and asked us to check into the situation. Calls to various sources revealed that the reports from Hyeres had been in error and that Lorrenzo was in fact helming the boat. As a result have now recalculated the points and established that Lorrenzo Bressani is indeed the 2007 Melges 24 World Ranking Champion.
Although we have also corrected the European Ranking Championship ultimately Lorrenzo's Hyeres result did not affect his overall points score and so the results for that are not affected.
Unfortunately this situation did not come to our attention until after the 2008 edition of M24 magazine had been printed including a report about the World Ranking showing John Pollard as the Champion. We can only apologise to both John and Lorrenzo for the error and confusion and thank them for their patience in helping us to resolve the matter.
At the Melges 24 party in Key West on Wednesday night a formal presentation was made to both Lorrenzo Bressani and his UkaUka crew and to 2007 North American Ranking Champion Brian Porter in recognition of their victories.
We would like to apologise again to Lorrenzo and John for this error and to thank Nigel, Jamie and everyone else who helped us to put the situation right.