Junior Sailors 4th Place In Argentina
Team Bermuda has earned a day off after reaching the half way point of the 2012 IODA South American Championships in Argentina. Eight fleet races have been completed over 3 days, and youngest team member Mikey Wollmann is the top Bermudian in 30th place, having secured 3 top ten finishes in the 8 races sailed.
Next is Chase Cooper in 58th place followed by Rory Caslin in 60th, Ceci Wolmann in 90th and Benn Smith in 117th in his IODA event debut. 160 sailors from 17 countries have been battling each other under sunny skies and light winds on the River Plate, just north of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photo of Mikey Wolmann in action by Mattias Capizzano:
Romain Screve and Sean Brennan from the USA are sailing well and are leading the fleet with a good margin. Irina Pieyrua from Argentina has sailed consistently as well and she sits in third place and is the top girl.
Wednesday brought better breeze for the Team Racing event. Bermuda competes in the Nations Cup along with the other non South American countries. Bermuda ended up in 4th place after beating Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay but losing twice to Team USA. Coach Martin Jenkins thought the group sailed well and showed much promise.
Thursday is a lay day followed two more days of fleet racing on Friday and Saturday.
Well, what do you know? A sailing team from itty bitty Bermuda with a population of nothing more than a small town in many of the countrys it is competing against gets a 4th place. Whats says even more for these sailors is that the base from which they are drawn is very very small.
So, how did they do it? It certainly was not from huge sums of public money thrown at the sport. It was done through dedication & practice. Practice, practice, no matter the weather practice. They can be seen on the water every weekend, every holiday from school, rain, blow or shine, they are out there sailing.
Wonder if the Sports Minister will be at the airport to welcome them back??? Nah…not likely. Bermuda would not be without sailing but it is not a National Sport.
BTW, NO I am not a sailor, nor were my kids involved in sailing.
I was/am a sailor, went to a few worlds and have got exactly nothing from the government. Sailing is dying very fast right now and it doesn’t help that government I believe gives only 25,000$ a year to the sport.
Ditto for swimming, and hockey…. mmmm, yes, I’ll say it…..I guess, as some PLP members have said, they didn’t “look like me”.
I find it kind of weird that even though the south amerian championships is a bigger reggata than lake garda, they get a final summary (lake garda) and the bermudians who went to the south americans don’t.