Laser 4.7 Worlds – 11 Caribbean Sailors Compete

On August 5th,
Barrington, RI felt a
very fresh warm breeze from the Caribbean. Out
of the 97 competitors that raced in the Laser 4.7 World Competition, nine
sailors hailed from our islands. Hugo Roller (
St. John), Sydney Jones (St. Croix), Adrian Hernandez,
Marco Texidor, Patricia Villafane,
Daisy Cintron, Hector Gonzalez, Eduardo Miro Leal, and Miguel Vega-Castevelli
from Puerto Rico.

The fleet divided after three days
of qualifying races into a Gold and Silver fleet. Intense racing commenced with shifty
winds and strong currents complicating the courses during the finals stage of
the event. Both Adrian Hernandez and Sydney Jones were mentioned in the
production for this world event footage can be viewed
by going to www.t2p.tv.

On August 13th, after
five long days of extremely competitive racing, sailors from four different
continents finished in the top ten. Joaquin Blanco Albalat
from Spain
emerged as the World Champion with a ten-point lead in the ten race series over
Adam Simms (GBR). Dany Stanisic
(SLO) took the third spot on the podium and fifth place Stephanie Roble (USA) was the top female as well as top North
American.

Our Caribbean sailors left quite
an imprint on the international fleet with Marco Texidor
(PUR) taking sixth place overall, two points behind Roble
(USA), and Adrian Hernandez not far behind finishing in 12th.

GOLD Fleet

6th-Marco Texidor PUR 174311

12th-Adrian Hernandez   PUR 177124

44th-Hugo Roller II
ISV   112189

SILVER Fleet

8th-Daisy Cintron PUR
151897 (female)

9th-Patricia Villfane
PUR 140317 (female)

11th-Miguel Vega-Castevelli   PUR 179519

17th-Sydney Jones ISV 151839 (female)

31st-Eduardo Miro Leal
PUR 179925

38th-Hector Gonzales   PUR 151899

Photographer Rob Jones from St. Croix
was photographing the fleet for all 5 days of sailing.   Over 2,000 photos of the event can bee
seen at www.robjones.smugmug.com
 

Kim Jones has written for ALL AT SEA since 2005.