10 Oct Oakcliff Triple Crown Series Storms To A Close
OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK (October 8th, 2017) – Olympic hopefuls from three countries battled it out at Stage 3 of the Oakcliff Triple Crown Series where nearly $50,000 of prize grants were awarded. With two days of breeze in the mid to low teens, racing was tight in the five Olympic classes: 470 Men’s, 470 Women’s, 49er, 49erFX, and the foiling Nacra 17.
Playing the puffs was key to staying on top this weekend. “We kept our heads outside of the boat,” said Nora Brugman, who won 470W crewing for her sister Atlantic. “It was very shifty and I think we did a good job looking around the race course checking for puffs.”
Judge Ryan and Hans Henken, brother of Paris Henken who represented the US in the 49erFX in the 2016 Olympics, won the 49er class. “Our strategy was to keep it as simple as possible,” said Ryan, “Start at the favored end and try to connect the shifts, which was a little bit tricky, but we were able to stay on top.”
Ali ten Hove and Mariah Millen narrowly missed out on winning all three stages of the Triple Crown in the 49erFX class. They won Stage 1 and 2 and tied for first in Stage 3 with Sam Merson and Jack Joslin but they lost the tie breaker. When asked if they would be back next year to win it all, they answered with a resounding “Yes, definitely!”
Riley Gibbs and Louisa Chafee won the Nacra 17 class but Ravi Parent and Christina Persson put up a good fight. “We just tried to stay between the mark and the competition,” said Louisa. “We had to switch out of Nacra Worlds, big-fleet-race mode and get into match-race mode to beat them,” Riley added.
Oakcliff’s High Performance Fleet Manager, Robyn Lesh, teamed up with Nikki Barnes for the first time this weekend to compete in the 470W. With a second-place finish in a tough fleet, this duo looks like a match made in heaven. “We used every race to learn something new,” said Robyn. “Yeah, we learned so much this weekend and it was incredible,” Nikki added.
Full results here: https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eID=4497
Oakcliff Sailing is an adult and youth training center for athletes who have progressed beyond traditional coaching methods and want to take the next step in their career. We offer trainees a proving ground to develop their skills in the three big veins of professional sailing: the America’s Cup, the Olympics, and around-the-world races. Our goal is to take American sailing back to the highest level world-wide.