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 Belcher and Page at round two of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Miami
Craig Heydon, Thursday, 28 January 2010 Australian Sailing Team crew Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page have moved up to seventh overall after six men's 470 races at round two of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Miami. Belcher and Page finished day three of the Rolex Miami OCR event with an 18th, fifth and second to move up two positions overall from their overnight position of ninth.
“Today was a pretty good day for us with two really good results,” said Belcher. “Mal and I are really enjoying getting back into racing at this level, where you need a good balance between strategy and tactics and if you make a mistake you lose four or five boat lengths straight away.”
“The wind was still quite light, we started the first race in about four or five knots and it built throughout the day to about eight or nine knots when we crossed the line at the end of the third race.”
The Australian crew’s day got off to a rough start when they were caught out by a 60 degree wind shift on the first beat of the first race which cost them dearly with the pair recording an 18th place finish.
“We were able to put the first race behind us and from then on had good starts, played the percentages and took all the opportunities that were presented to us,” said Belcher. “The racing here in Miami is incredibly close, there’s nothing in it with the top crews changing in every race.”
“It’s important to play the risks properly and stay on your game the whole time, working hard to be in the right position and then realising as soon as you’re not in the right position and getting there as quickly as possible to limit any damage.”
Belcher and Page finished the day on 38 points and with just 15 points separating themselves from the leading crew of Nic Asher and Elliot Willis of Great Britain there is still plenty to play for amongst the leading crews.
Belcher said that he and Page were finally in a position to tune their chartered boat properly after spending their first few days in Miami getting it to a condition where it could be raced.
“We lost three or four days when we first arrived just getting the boat to a condition we were happy with,” said Belcher. “It had been left unattended for about 10 months and needed quite a bit of work to get it to a level that we were happy with but now we’re finally able to get the tuning right and work on our race speed.”
“After the strong finish this afternoon we’re really looking forward to tomorrow’s racing,” he said.
Two races are scheduled for the men’s 470 fleet on Thursday with another two on Friday before the final medal race on Saturday.
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