Paul Goodison and the Star duo of Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson added to the British medal haul on the final day of the Palma World Cup regatta to keep GBR at the top of the medal table at the first European World Cup of the season.

The reigning Olympic Champions in the Laser and Star classes both clinched silver medals on a breezy medal race day, adding to the gold which Ben Ainslie won with a day to spare, and Helena Lucas’s silver from the last day of 2.4mR racing on Friday.

Palma Bay laid on perfect conditions of sunshine, waves and 16-20 knot winds for the sixth and final day for the eight competing Olympic classes.

Paul Goodison claimed the first medal of the day for Skandia Team GBR in the Laser.  Trailing the German Simon Grotelueschen by seven points heading into the final 10-boat race, Goodison had to try and get three boats between himself and the series leader to have a chance of gold but Grotelueschen got ahead of him early on the first beat and managed to hold on for the remainder of the race.

“He just got across me on the first cross and from there he did a pretty good job of tacking on me and just keeping me behind him so it was a little bit tricky,” Goodison explained.  “Fortunately I managed to do enough to keep hold of silver.  

“Looking back, it’s been a pretty good week here, some good improvements, a bit of frustration with an OCS from a race I won earlier in the week.  That could have changed things quite dramatically but we’re all pretty happy.

“It was good to go to Miami and win there but obviously the fleet is a bit stronger here and I kept my main rivals behind me again,” he continued.  “I think the winter training has all been paying off and I’m looking forward to now going back to Weymouth and training where it really matters.”

Percy and Simpson missed out on Star class by the narrowest of margins to Brazil’s Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada. Just twelve points separated the top seven boats heading into Saturday’s finale, leading to a tense battle for the medals and with Percy and Simpson poised just outside of the top three spots going into the day.

The British duo fought hard to finished the medal race in second, but overnight leaders Scheidt and Prada crossed in fourth and did just enough to keep hold of gold by one point.

“You never like to lose, not by a point and not when the last wave cost us the regatta, but it’s fine,” Percy remarked.

“It’s the first event of the season, and I think winning would have been flattering of where we are at – we’ve got a lot of work to do and losing the regatta helps you realise that and I think at this time of the year that’s important.  

“Last year we won this event really quite comfortably, and in some ways I look back and I think it made us maybe think we were a little bit ahead of where we were.  This year it’s been drummed in pretty hard with some schoolboy errors.  We’ve got some work to do.”

The event was Percy and Simpson’s first since the Perth World Championships where they were forced to withdraw when leading the regatta when Percy sustained a back injury.  The 35-year-old is buoyed that his winter rehabilitation has stood him in good stead this week.

“I have in general felt fine – we had a little bit of breeze yesterday for a couple of races and felt fine. That’s actually a real positive to take from the week that I feel great now after that sail.”

On a breezy penultimate day of racing for the eight Olympic classes competing at the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma, Ben Ainslie’s day took an unexpected turn when a collision on the startline of the first Finn race left him dashing to shore in search of a replacement boat after his sustained damage.

On finding one and switching his own rig into the spare hull, the 35-year-old Ainslie managed to make it back out to the course area in time to start the second race in which he finished third to amass an unassailable 35 point lead ahead of the final 10-boat double points-scoring medal race on Saturday.

“It was one of those crazy days and a really strange pre-start incident I think because of the big waves and trying to clear another boat which would have caused me to capsize onto another boat,” recounted the triple Olympic gold medallist.

“I injured myself in the process and reasonably damaged my boat so there was no real chance of continuing in the race in that state, so the best option was to come ashore and luckily there was a spare boat lying in the dinghy park that no-one was using.  So we just switched the rigs round, came back out and just had to try and get a reasonable race to get round the course. 

“As it turned it out I was not very quick at all but managed to sail reasonably well and had very good speed downwind and I finished third.  So it was a bit of an epic day, but sometimes these things are sent to test you and in a way there were actually some good lessons learned from crisis management.”

Ainslie, who defends his Princess Sofia crown from 2011, was delighted with his performance following a testing winter, during which he underwent surgery for a back complaint.

“It’s a real boost [to win here] after a very difficult period so I’m very happy with the way I’ve been sailing and things in general, and my body seems to have held up reasonably well."

Photo: Emirates Team New Zealand

Rod Davis, coach to Emirates Team New Zealand, doesn't like mincing his words. And in his Seahorse magazine column he makes no secret of his distaste for the modern trend of the 'Show' becoming more important than the 'Competition'. His latest blog post is a reminder that in the America's Cup, appearances are nearly always deceptive (and that's a big part of the fun of it, in my view)...

It has been a bizarre time for the America’s Cup; the war of words and press releases has been nonstop for five years when Oracle questioned Alinghi’s Challenger of Record. Since then we have been fed a fatty diet of spin doctoring.

Some would say “situation normal for the America’s Cup”.  Not in my experience and I have been in the game a long time.   Take the headline “Ainslie launches America’s Cup campaign”. What?

Uncle Larry is underwriting Ben’s AC45 sailing and then he joins Oracle in the defence for the USA. Where is the Ben Ainslie America’s Cup campaign in that?  Or the nine challengers listed in the America’s Cup web site, when, in reality only three have paid the money. The trick is to not allow the spin doctors to distract you from the real game.

When you blow away the smoke and see through the mirrors you find the America’s Cup as it is:

CLICK HERE FOR ROD'S 5 BULLET POINTS ON ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW TO UNDERSTAND THE AMERICA'S CUP...

© Rolex/ Daniel Forster: Marit Bouwemeester in the Laser Radial

More than 500 sailors are about to compete at the Rolex Miami Olympic Classes Regatta in Florida. With just half a year to the Games, it's getting serious.

Among the many international competitors - some with Olympic berths secured and others still vying for spots on their national teams is Marit Bouwmeester (The Netherlands), who finished 2011 on a high note by winning both the Laser Radial class at the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships.

“Everybody has been training really hard the past year, so I think Rolex Miami OCR will be a tough battle again and it will probably stay that way until the Games,” said Bouwmeester whose company out on the water will include fellow podium finishers at the Worlds and Olympic representatives Paige Railey (USA) and Evi Van Acker (Belgium). (Railey also is the defending Rolex Miami OCR champion and has won the event four times.)

“It is definitely fun racing against all the good girls,” said Bouwmeester, adding that 2012 will be her first-ever Olympic experience. “I always spend two months in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to get my light-wind training in. Miami is the complete opposite of what I’m used to, so it’s a nice challenge and a good opportunity to learn.”

With 82 boats registered, the Laser class promises not to disappoint as the typically largest fleet at the Rolex Miami OCR.  With multiple potential winners embedded in the entry roster, Chris Dold and David Wright stand out from among 13 Canadian entries that are here to participate in their Olympic Trials, which started in Perth and will end with the next ISAF Sailing World Cup regatta (the Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofia MAPFRE) in March.

“It’s going to be fun to watch these guys fight it out for their Olympic Trials,” said Rob Crane (Darien, Conn., USA) who is coming off a jam-packed 2011 schedule that culminated with him winning an Olympic berth for the U.S. team after pulling off amazing 1-2 finishes on the last competition day in Perth to beat out his teammates for the spot.

“After my own experience in Perth, it will be fun to watch other people handle that situation,” said Crane.  “I train with the Canadian team a lot, and I’m good friends with all those guys. It’s great to race against them, but for this regatta their concern is beating out each other for the Olympic spot.”

The fleet also is densely packed with well-known names from around the globe such as Alsogaray (ARG) and Bruno Fontes (BRA), as well as up-and-comers such as Charlie Buckingham (USA).

Traveling more than halfway around the globe are 2011 World Champions and Australia’s representatives for the Olympic Games in the 470 Men’s class  Mathew Belcher and Malcom Page. “After spending the better part of the decade trying to gain Olympic selection, London will be my first (Games),” said Belcher, adding that his teammate Malcolm Page crewed (for skipper Nathan Wilmot) to win an Olympic Gold medal in Beijing (2008). 

“We have and will be working hard to prepare ourselves to defend Australia’s Gold from Beijing, and the Rolex Miami OCR 2012 will provide us with the opportunity to gain high level racing before heading over to Europe,” said Belcher, who will be going up against some power houses who are constantly battling each other in the top-ten at international events, including Olympic-bound Stu McNay (Boston, Mass., USA) with crew Graham Biehl (San Diego, Calif., USA); Lucas Calabrese with Juan Maria de la Fuente (ARG); and Matthias Schmid with Florian Reichstaedter (AUT).  “We are a little isolated in Australia and don’t get the level of competition that our competitors can get access to. For us, it’s important to fly almost 30 hours and transport our equipment to Miami to compete for only a five-day regatta. That’s how much we like coming to Miami and how important we think doing this event is.”

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (GBR), in the 470 Women’s class, are always a good run for the money, and after a podium finish in Perth they will no doubt share in some epic battles against World Champions Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout (NED). The USA’s team of Amanda Clark(Shelter Island Heights, N.Y., USA)  and Sarah Lihan Fort Lauderdale, Fla., USA) edged out USA’s Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar during a tie-breaker in Perth, which earned them their berth at the Olympic Games.

As always, the Star class is full of world-renowned champions, and perhaps the best-known names attending are two-time Olympic gold medalists Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada (BRA), who just wrapped up 2011 with their second straight title at the Star World Championships (as part of the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Perth).  Though Scheidt and Prada are used to fleet-topping performances, they also know not to discount the tough competition that consistently rotates into the top ten at this event, including Xavier Rohart with crew Pierre Alexis Ponsot (FRA) and Hamish Pepper with Maz Salminen (SWE). The USA’s Olympic-bound Star sailors Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih (both Miami, Fla.) also will be in attendance and using their local knowledge to try to dominate on Biscayne Bay.

Nico Luca Marc Delle Karth and Nikolaus Resch (AUT) are top players in the 49erfleet, and in Perth, Denmark had a handful of teams in the medal race, so it doesn’t go unnoticed that Allan Norregaard and crew Peter Land have thrown their hat into the Rolex Miami OCR ring along with Jonas Warrer (Denmark’s gold medalist in Beijing) and Seren Hansen.  Erik Storck (Huntington, N.Y., USA) and Trevor Moore (Pomfret, Vt./Naples, Fla., USA) who were inches away from bronze in Perth, are on an upward spiral and expecting to accomplish big things at the Rolex Miami OCR.  But all is not for the veterans at this event.  U.S. up-and-comers Ryan Pesch (Chicago, Ill.,USA) and Trevor Burd (Vineyard Haven, Mass. USA), are looking to retain their status on the US Sailing Development Team, along with Frederick Strammer (Nokomis, Fla.) and Zachary Brown (Nokomis, Fla., USA), who have been training and living in Miami for several months and are making a push for the 2016 Olympic Games.  

TO READ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS AND TIPS FROM SOME OF THESE LEADING OLYMPIC SAILORS, GO TO SAILJUICE.COM