2007 America's Disabled/Open Regatta
November 29- December 2, 2007
St. Petersburg Yacht Club, Florida
St. Petersburg Yacht Club is one of the best sailing venues in Florida and especially conducive to the Disabled classes with the ease of getting boats in and out of the water as well as sailors in and out. The sailing area is wonderful and sailors from around the world are always excited to compete in St. Petersburg. This year, fresh off of the US Olympic Trials, the event offered racing for the 2.4 meter class, the Sonar and the SCUD 18. Multiple nations were competing to get some great training in before the OCR to be held in Miami, FL in January. Canada, Ireland, Sweden and the United Sates were all on the water making this an international event.
In the 2.4 meter class, US Paralympic representative, John Ruf was using this event for training and boat speed testing. He had friend and competitor Mark LeBlanc from New Orleans, runner-up at the trials as well as top international 2.4 meter sailors, Stellan Berlin, Paul Tingley and Bruce Millar racing. newcomer to racing the 2.4meter, Carl Horrocks a great sailor and E-Scow racer also jumped into a 2.4 and had a go of it.
Carl had a great regatta with his full Quantum inventory of 2.4 meter sails while John Ruf and Mark LeBlanc squeezed in behind the top two Canadian racers. The sailing was tough and the five race series included a throwout to make things a bit more interesting. Carl finished runner-up behind Stellan, never finishing outside of third place.
In the Sonar class, Albert Foster, Wayzata, MN took the title sailing a strong series finishing just in front of Paralympic qualifier, Rick Doerr in a close series. It is great to see these top competitors working hard with the US Paralympic representatives to push them to even greater sailing results.