Comodoro Rasco – Final

Thirty-one teams competed in this weekend’s Comodoro Rasco Snipe regatta hosted by Coconut Grove Yacht Club in Miami.  Five races were completed over two days.  2017 Snipe World Champion, Raul Rios (Puerto Rico), sailing with Jose Arturo Diaz (Puerto Rico) won the event.  Taylor Scheuermann and Mario Urban of Miami placed second, and Enrique Quintero (Miami) and Diego Escobar (San Diego) rounded out the top three.  The Top Junior (Under 22) prize went to Trevor Long (Boston) and Lucas Masiello (Annapolis).

Day one of the regatta brought winds ranging from eleven to fifteen knots with major shifts often mixing up the standings significantly throughout races.  Rios and Diaz dominated race one, but the rest of the fleet was very tight making for exciting downwinds in the breeze and some interested mark roundings.

Reigning Western Hemisphere Champions, Ernesto Rodriguez and Kathleen Tocke, came back from an OCS in Race One to win race two.  With the fleet being aggressive in race three, it took three attempts before the Race Committee could get a start off.  Again, it was Rios and Diaz in first and Rodriguez and Tocke in second.  Other notable performances for the day were Peter and Connie Commette (Ft. Lauderdale) and Arthur Blodgett and Gracie Howie (Fort Lauderdale/Miami) who sailed consistently in the top five.

Day two saw the wind further right, very stable, but with significantly more chop. The breeze ranged between eight and eleven knots.  Both of the day’s races were won by Rodriguez and Tocke, but there was a significant mixing of boats at the top of the top of the fleet.  The Junior team of Scott Harris and Isa du Plessis found themselves leading at the first mark.  The pair was able to hold on to finish the race in sixth – a great accomplishment for the skipper’s second Snipe event.

The second race threw many for a loop when the Race Committee hoisted the flag for an Olympic course.  With the wind less than 12 knots, it was very tricky to keep the boat moving fast on the reach.  The race leaders, Rodriguez and Tocke, who capsized between races, never saw the course change and went the wrong direction at both windward mark roundings, giving the boats behind some hope of catching up.

The Comodoro Rasco Regatta was inaugurated by Commodore Manuel Rasco of the Miramar Yacht Club in Havana, Cuba in the 1950s and first run by Gonzalo “Old Man” Diaz in Miami in 1970.  Coconut Grove Sailing Club has been the perpetual host of the storied event. At the Prize Giving, the fleet was honored by the presence of Old Man and Carmen Diaz, who came out of quarantine for this special occasion.