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Golden Congrats to Mikee Anderson-Mitterling and Dave Hughes for winning the Men's 470 Class at keil Week. Skip Whyte gives the details. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling and Dave Hughes were on a mission today. Trailing by 5 points with a race to go and only a point ahead of third, they needed a great race and the leading Russians had to be out of the money. After the long tow the wind was around 2-5 knots, but pretty stable in direction. Mikee and Dave, working with Amanda and Sarah during the postponement to get a feeling for the breeze, had decided that the pressure was coming from the right so their plan was to get onto port early and protect the right. When the breeze finally built to the 4-7 range the fleets went into sequence. The pin was favored by a left shift, but Mikee and Dave started near the boat and tacked right away with all of the players except the Russians to their left. The Russians were all the way right, but had given up some distance due to the line bias. NED and AUS were also going right and in the front group. Mikee and Dave timed their tacks perfectly and lead at the top with NED 2nd and AUS and RUS around 10th. Down the first run Mikee and Dave jibed away from the Dutch giving them separation. NED looked good briefly, but the pressure kept filling form the right and it was all over but the cheering by the leeward mark. The Russians were deep and the Aussies were not a threat. Mikee and Dave went on to a huge win in the race and the series. The Dutch were second. By the finish the Russians managed an excellent comeback to secure third overall with the Aussies 4th. Amanda and Sarah had something to prove to themselves after their two poor results yesterday. They sailed a terrific race, moving from around 7th at the top all the way to 2nd at the finish. They did an exceptional job dealing with heavy traffic on the final run as the women had sailed into the back of the Gold fleet. The 2nd moved them to 7th overall from 9th. They had five top 4 finishes in the 9 race series, but too many double digit scores following poor starts. Consistent starting will become a feature of their program and they will soon find themselves on the podium. Mikee and Dave now join Paul Foerster and Bob Merrick as the only American teams to win Kiel Week. After the prize giving they were engrossed reading the names of the previous winners on the perpetual trophy. They seemed pretty happy to know that their names would soon join the others. They clearly like being on the podium and there is no doubt that they will be back there before long. Rollin
"Skip" Whyte |