If it were a high school championship, we’d say that SoCal beat NorCal. The Worlds are for grown-ups though, a bit removed from intramurals. Rich Roberts reports from Worlds headquarters - St. Francis YC:

Mother Nature gave Mike Martin the 18 knots of wind he asked for and he and crew Jeff Nelson took care of the rest of their business Saturday to win the 2009 SAP 505 World Championship with an artistic runaway performance.  

 

Their climactic 46-second victory mirrored their earlier mastery of the cold, strong winds that San Francisco promised but surprisingly substituted with two days of summer near the end of the week, momentarily taking them off their game.

 

Earlier, they used one of their discards when they broke their mast in the mud of the shallow Berkeley Circle while running a close second to Santa Cruzers Mike Holt and crew Carl Smit, had to swallow a 12th place when the breeze turned light and tricky, and then needed to recharge their winning form to beat off Mike and Carl over the last two days.

 

From Day 1 it evolved into a two-boat battle for the title. Holt/Smit were second to Martin/Nelson's firsts in four of the first five races. (Last week’s North Americans ended up with same names in the 1-2 spots on the final scorecard.)

 

After regaining the regatta lead from Holt/Smit in moderate breeze On Friday, Martin said he'd like to see the wind return to, say, 18 knots for the showdown on Saturday. He wasn't being greedy; that velocity and more had been standard earlier in the week.

 

"There was a bit of nervousness at the start," Martin said afterward, "but in the end…" 

 

In the end, after the breeze had built from 12 knots to past 20 in the 3 1/2-lap, hour-and-a-half race, Martin and Nelson were at home in their element again, invincible in their sixth first place in the nine-race series, this time with Nick Adamson/Steve Bourdow in second, Australians Chris Nicholson/Casey Smith third, and Holt/Smit fourth.

 

Martin, 44, and Nelson, 34, are from Newport Beach, which may contradict their superiority in heavy weather, but they have been sailing together for 10 years all over the world in all kinds of conditions.

 

That's also as old as the spare aluminum mast they used for the last seven races with no apparent loss of performance.

 

Also marking the return of tough sailing were several capsizes and one sinking. Michael and Mark Lazzaro's difficult week - they finished only three races - ended when their #5281, the oldest boat in the fleet, sank in 10 feet near the leeward gate. They were rescued from the 62-degree water, and the boat also was recovered.

 

Back at the Crissy Field boat yard after the six-mile upwind sail from the race course, Martin and Nelson were greeted with enthusiastic laughs, smiles and hugs by their sailing buddy, Howie Hamlin of Long Beach, and Paul Cayard of Kentfield, his substitute crew for the week. That team wound up seventh overall.

Martin was Hamlin's crew when they won the 505 Worlds 10 years ago, and Hamlin noted, "Nobody has ever won the 505 Worlds as a crew and then as a skipper. It's well deserved. He's worked for it a long time. He loves breeze. He always has."

 

"I woke up this morning and realized I wouldn't be waking up again to go sailing in a 505," Cayard said, wistfully. "Small boat sailing is what I gave up doing to do what I do 99 percent of the time now."

The top 10: 

(9 races; 2 discards) 

1. Mike Martin/Jeff Nelson, USA, 1-(DNF)-1-1-1-(12)-2-1-1, 8 points.

2. Mike Holt/Carl Smit, USA, 2-1-2-2-2-3-(4)-(9)-4, 16. 

3. Chris Nicholson/Casey Smith, Australia, 4-3-3-3-3-7-(8)-(8)-3. 26.    

4. Jens Findel/Johannes Tellen, Germany, (72)-5-6-(15)-12-2-3-10-5, 36. 5. Dalton Bergan/Fritz Lanzinger, USA, 8-8-4-10-(15)-1-5-2-(16), 38.  

6. Nick Adamson/Steve Bourdow, USA, 9-2-13-4-4-4-(17)-(14)-2, 38.  

7. Howie Hamlin/Paul Cayard, USA, 5-6-(RAF)-7-(14)-5-10-5-6, 44.   

8. Tyler Moore/Geoff Ewenson, USA, 11-13-11-(15)-(16)-8-6-4-10, 63.  

9. Ryan Cox/Stuart Park, USA, 12-11-12-6-8-6-(15)-(22)-8, 63.   

10. 10.Ian Pinnell/Carl Gibbon, Great Britain, 7-(14)-8-13-(20)-10-11-3-(DNF), 66.
    

- Rich Roberts

Be sure to check out Marine Media Alliance’s video package at www.youtube.com/watch?v=tULi7a8lidI.

Some more choice links: complete final results; high-resolution photo gallery; more about 505s; world champions since 1956; track all of the races live by going to www.tractrac.com. For many more fine articles by Rich Roberts and others, see www.505sapworldchampionship2009.com.