Guanabara Bay served up another cracker on Saturday for the penultimate round of the SSL Gold Cup Pan-American Qualifiers, a day the Star Sailors League dubbed "Samba Saturday" before the real pressure hits on Sunday.
Eight national teams are chasing just three remaining tickets to the Copa do Mundo da Vela. Two clear group leaders have emerged, but with double points on offer in Sunday's race, followed by the sudden-death Last Chance race, nothing is settled yet.
The breeze held up nicely for racing, even if Saturday's sunshine came with a few more clouds than the day before.
In Group H, Venezuela and Puerto Rico timed their starts to perfection, nailing the committee boat and pin ends respectively and leaving Uruguay and Antigua & Barbuda to dig themselves out of a hole. Puerto Rico then broke a jib sheet mid-tack and had to peel off left for repairs while the rest of the fleet worked the right-hand side of the course toward Sugarloaf Mountain.
That split made for an anxious wait to see how Puerto Rico would rejoin the fleet. They climbed back into contention as the boats converged on the windward mark, where Antigua & Barbuda emerged in front by the narrowest of margins, just three seconds covering the chasing pack.
Downwind, the Antigua & Barbuda boat, nicknamed the Rum Runners, stretched out while Group leaders Uruguay fumbled a gybe-set and dropped to the back. It tightened up again at the leeward gate, with Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela rounding almost on top of each other.
Uruguay found a pressure band on the left up the final beat, sailed through Puerto Rico, and powered past Antigua & Barbuda to snatch the win. Puerto Rico's day got worse from there, a snagged spinnaker retrieval and a penalty for sailing the wrong course dropping them back and letting Venezuela through for third.
"Today was a tough, tough day," said SSL Team Uruguay trimmer Federico Waksman. "We made many mistakes, but we came up with a good solution for each mistake, so I think it was finally a really motivational, really interesting race."
He credited the tactician's read of the left-hand side for the winning move. "For the days that we've been training here it was one of the things the tactician was worried about, that a puff can come on this side of the course so we just gave it a try. We knew our rival was Antigua & Barbuda, so we wanted to beat him and our decision paid off."
Group I produced an even tighter finish. El Salvador took the committee boat end, Cuba the pin, and the breeze built to 15 knots as the fleet got away cleanly.
Cuba's crew read the shifts beautifully on the way out right, crossing the fleet by more than 100 metres. Mexico rounded the windward mark just ahead of Bermuda, with El Salvador further back.
Helmed by Nelido Manso López, Cuba, sailing as the Pirates of the Caribbean, extended downwind and saved a messy spinnaker drop at the gate, hauling it from the water before it dragged. Mexico led the chase as El Salvador wrestled with a jib that wouldn't sheet in. Stronger wind magnifies every small error out there.
Cuba rounded the final windward mark 24 seconds clear of Mexico, nailing the layline, with Bermuda third.
Then the race turned on its head. Cuba lost ground on the left down the final run while Mexico and Bermuda charged down the right, crossing gybes into the finish before Bermuda rolled Mexico in the closing seconds to win by just three seconds, Cuba a further ten back.
That result leaves Group I beautifully poised for Sunday. Mexico lead Bermuda by a single point, with Cuba only two further back. El Salvador will need the lot to go their way just to reach the Last Chance race.
"It was an epic, epic downwind and the whole crew went 100% fast, fast, fast, the whole way down," said SSL Team Bermuda grinder Max Curtis. "I've probably never spun the handles that fast in my life! We were just wide open. There was great communication between us and the trimmer, the tactician and the skipper. We just banged every single manoeuvre to get us down to that finish."
Curtis admitted Saturday had a little redemption in it, too. "They pretty much opened the door for us, so we just took the opportunity, banged our big manoeuvres and it was a whole team effort. I fell out of the boat yesterday, and coming from that and still coming first, and then redoing it all over again today, the team's just locked right in now and it's all to play for in the next race. The whole team's hungry right now and we're going into tomorrow."
Sunday decides it all. The final three tickets to the Copa do Mundo da Vela will be handed out, completing the full 40-nation field for the event.
