Miami OCR for Sarah Newberry & John Casey

Images: Miami OCR.  Sarah & John were 5th on the medal race but they managed to stay 5 points ahead of Streater-Whitehead.
A nice start for their campaign, surely looking forward to race against other top mixed crews in Europe this summer.  In the ‘old’ continent already a dutch crew desisted on continuing their campaign with a a man being helm, (one of the best cat helms on earth) among other details.
So it is clear even before this first race, that female helming is the right and possibly the only choice to perform on the N17.

But it is a learning process for all, and the US Olympic team has already 5 boats on the water, with several talented young sailors, a good advantage that can be key in the future.
Medal race is dangerous and too highly rated , for what you organize a 10 race event then?
This effort to make sailing an spectator sport sometimes sounds silly, just seeing some Finn or Laser races hurt my eyes just thinking on how people outside the sport can ever watch a sailing race.
 
I’m Not going to argue the level of the sailors in those classes (Coutts, Ainsle, Slingby, Scheidt and else) , that has nothing to with it, but more with the image of the sport for non sailors.
The only chance on the long term for those wanting more awareness and participation is quite simple for the highest level of competition and exposure: Moth, 49er, A-Class, Double handed Multi, Kite and Windsurf, the rest is simply antique if you want to make sailing more popular to new generations. For me is clear that in the future these classes are going the boats of choice.

Regarding the Nacra 17, it looks good in this aspect, but it seems crews will need lots hours to tune it as we mentioned several times. And still the carbon mast has to be fitted , trimmed and raced. Beyond this it was a great first event for the return of Multis to the Games.

Good coverage from Miami OCR organizers, lots of images, videos and daily results: https://mocr.ussailing.org/