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505 WORLDS

HYANNIS, Mass.--Nick Trotman and Mike Mills survived a final race scare to claim the 43rd 505 World Championship. They're the first American team to win the 505 Worlds since Gary Knapp and Cam Lewis won in 1982.

Trotman and Mills narrowly missed clinching the title last Thursday (Sept. 24) when they finished Race 6 11th. Had they finished 10th or better, they would've been spectators on the last day.

Instead, Trotman and Mills planned to cover Dean Barker and Ian Cripps from England, the only threatening team. For the Brits to become champions they had to win the final race and the Americans had to finish out of the top 10, which nearly happened.

"That race was touch and go, we were never in control," said Trotman. "Throughout the regatta we had good height on them. We wanted to start on top and control them, but a big left shift out of the gate allowed them to get in front. We tacked below them going upwind and were living until our lane got squashed and we were forced back left. They rounded the windward mark in 10th and we were in the 30s. It was nerve wracking. We could see the leaders were punched out so we figured [Barker and Cripps] wouldn't win, but it was nerve wracking."

Barker and Cripps finished the final contest 4th, while Trotman and Mills were 14th, their throwout. The final scores left the Americans with a 5.7-point cushion for the title.

"In hindsight, the thing that stands out is we were always passing boats," said Trotman. "We started conservatively, and never got screwed on the first beats. We were always in the hunt. We took our chances later in the races. We also had good downwind speed and solid tactics. It all combined to work out."

While the final may have been nerve wracking for Trotman and Mills, Barker and Cripps' 4th actually dropped them to third overall. Americans Howie Hamlin and Mike Martin claimed the runner-up spot on a final race third. Last year, Hamlin and Martin were third at the Worlds.

Overall, American and British teams dominated the top 10. Americans placed first, second, fourth and eighth, and the Brits placed third, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth.
--Sean McNeill

Vol. 9, No. 39
September 24, 1998

505 WORLDS

HYANNIS, Mass.--Nantucket Sound has served up a bevy of delightful fall conditions for the 107 competitors in the Sea-Land 505 World Championship. From building, southwesterly seabreezes to gusty northerlies, the 505s have shown their incredible speed, planing upwind over short waves and surfing on screaming reaches.

At the start of racing today, Nick Trotman (Manchester, Mass.) and Mike Mills (Portsmouth, R.I.) stood in position to strengthen their chance of being the first Americans to win the 505 World Championship in more than a decade. They went into today's Race 6 with a 7.4-point lead over Britons Ian Barker and Daniel Cripps. Pending the outcome of today's race, Trotman and Mills could lock up the series with one race to spare.

Their task has been made slightly easier by yesterday's disqualification of defending world champs Mark Upton-Brown and Ian Mitchell, also from England. The DSQ resulted after the duo failed to exonerate themselves following a collision. Instead of finishing third in yesterday's race, which would have placed them third overall with 27.7 points, they dropped to fifth with 46 points.

Trotman and Mills served notice they'd be contenders when they won last week's North American/Pre-World Championship by 12.1 points, including four firsts. They opened the Worlds competition with a 5-6, but then posted a 1-1-2 in the next three races for the low score of 13 points in the bonus-point scored event.

"To be honest, we haven't had good first beats," said Trotman. "Most of our first beats have been mediocre."

Despite mediocre first beats, they've been super fast on the reach legs and have been able to figure out the second beats. In Race 4, they rounded the windward mark in 12th, the leeward mark in sixth, and then worked the middle of the second beat to round third, before winning.

Courses have been lengthy, between 15 and 20 miles. The circuit includes a triangle, followed by a windward/leeward, another triangle, and then a beat to the finish at the windward mark.

Barker, the '93 world champion skipper, and Cripps halted Trotman and Mills's winning streak yesterday in a gusty northerly breeze around 20 knots. But the Americans' second kept them comfortably ahead with two races to sail.