Oakcliff International Grade 2 Day 3 Update

During flight 12, Jaiden Stevens, crewing for Jordan Reece, was hit by a block while grinding, fell, hitting the back of his head and was briefly knocked out.  Stevens was swiftly taken to shore and to the emergency room where the medical personnel released him with no sign of concussion.  “The American medical system was not bad at all,” the Australian remarked. “As soon as the nurses heard my Australian accent they were quite accommodating.”

During the second quarterfinal, Dave Perry, who was racing against Taylor Canfield at the time was heading upwind on starboard about 5 lengths from the top mark as Vladimir Lipavsky had just rounded and was heading downwind on port with no spinnaker.  Both skippers were confident they would clear each other when a puff hit and Perry’s mast caught Lipavsky’s backstay and brought the Russian’s mast down.   Perry, who asked for redress, remarked “I feel sick to be involved in a situation resulting in boat damage. The good news is no one was hurt.”  Perry had rights over Lipavsky who was on port and required to keep clear.  Ralfie Steitz, crew for Perry, went up the rig to cut loose the tangled rigging.  Ralfie is quite familiar with working aloft, and was tether balled around the rig of Stars and Stripes during the 1995 America’s Cup in San Diego on the day that One Australia sank.    It is undermined whether either team will get their boat damage deposit of $2500 back.

Flight 13 was started with RC flying a Z flag, signaling no spinnakers, due to the consistent heavy breeze and multiple breakdowns, including a broken spin pole on boat #8.   Also for F13, all competitors were asked to remove the second batten in their jibs to even the playing field since a few boats had blown out their batten pockets and sail repair was not an option in the conditions.    Just after completing F13, Chris Poole was seen jumping into the water and surfacing with baton in hand.   “He didn’t want to lose any of his damage deposit,” a crew member said.