2016 Florida Midwinters Report - Craig Thompson

Mark Zagol (Left) and Drew Buttner (right); 2016 Midwinter Champions. Dave Ellis (center) was the PRO.

The 2016 Midwinters were hosted by Clearwater Community Sailing Center; who most recently hosted the combined World Championships for the 49er, 49erFX, and Nacra 17. This was a new venue to the 505 Class, and it did not disappoint. The facility, launch, sailing conditions, and the organization were all first rate. Ethan Bixby did a great job organizing and PRO Dave Ellis along with the Sailing Center Staff and volunteers all did an awesome job running races.

The only negative I have to report is the lackluster turnout. 12 boats was a very disappointing considering we had close to 30 boats back in 2008-2009 era at Fort De Soto State Park. However, the racing was close and competitive (for positions 2-12). We need to try to get more boats to make the trip down in 2017. The great venue and the fact that we will be hosting an East Coast Worlds should be good reasons for a solid turnout next year.

Mark and Drew had a dangerous combination of boat speed, smarts, and ability to stay in phase on the shifts. Ethan/Ted and Augie/Scott were the only other teams to win a race in the series. Henry/Dustin and Tyler/Jesse also had many appearances inside the top 3, but neither team could stay ahead of Mark and Drew. Conditions on Friday/Saturday were 10-14 knots with primarily wire running downwind. Sunday the breeze was 5 knots and dying as we barely completed the 10th race of the series before the breeze shut off completely.

Full Results:

Pos	Sail	Skipper/Crew	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total
1	8830	Mark Zagol/Drew Buttner	[4]	1	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	11
2	8715	Ethan Bixby/Ted Huebner	3	[5]	1	3	5	2	2	2	3	3	24
3	8808	Augie Diaz/Scott Ewing	1	2	4	6	2	3	5	3	7	[8]	33
4	9138	Tyler Moore/Jesse Falsone	2	6	5	2	4	5	3	4	4	[10]	35
5	9041	Henry Amthor/Dustin Romey	7	4	2	5	[8]	6	7	6	2	2	41
6	9095	Macy Nelson/Eric Anderson	6	3	8	8	3	4	6	5	[11]	9	52
7	8854	Craig Thompson/Mike Curtin	5	11	6	4	7	8	[13/DNF]	13/DNS	5	5	64
8	8814	Lin Robson/Unknown	[10]	8	7	9	9	7	4	7	10	4	65
9	8722	Kelsey Avril/Brendan Heussler	9	7	[10]	10	6	9	8	9	8	6	72
10	7346	Zachary Marks/Carl Smit	8	[10]	9	7	10	10	10	8	6	7	75
11	8829	Krysia Pohl/Bryan Richardson	11	9	11	[13/DNS]	11	11	9	10	9	12	93
12	8593	Nathaniel Plant/Unknown	12	[13/DNS]	13/DNS	13/DNS	12	12	11	13/DNF	12	11	109