Buenos Aires Week 2016: Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser Champs

All images El Ojo Náutico / Esteban Cousillas – Great 5 days Championship where we complete 17 regattas in almost every condition. 28 F18s racing. Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser (Infusion MKII) controlled the competition in the last stage to take another cup home, this time the 2016 Buenos Aires Week & South Americans 2016 edition held at the Yacht Club Argentino, venue for coming F18 Worlds in 2 weeks, of course they are one of the more serious contenders.

Second place for Esteban Blando & Nico Quagliotti (Phantom), both closed the event in great form with two bullets in the last races after an average perf for them in previous races. Reacting in the last stages is always tough, so an excellent finish for them looking forward for the Worlds.

Third place for the local youth contenders, Pablo Volker & Tigre Benitez (Phantom), with an awful start as they missed 4 first races on a broken bowsprit.
With that handicap the kids didn´t have much options than deliver  the rest of the event, and they did: check their impressive posterior results.  Finishing third fro them was crazy and with one more scoring race (say a 12) they could have won the championship.

Mateo Majdalani (Gold Medalist assistant coach, and another top youth promise) & Sergio Mehl (Phantom) were second after 14 races but they let the podium slip from their hands the last day in tricky light conditions with our known Northern Bumps chop.
Just imagine the Ski bumps, and now put yourself sailing though them with light winds, it is a nerve breaking situation, and quite technical to maintain course and calm.
Mateo will be replaced for Matías Buhler for the Worlds.

5th place for Austín Krevisky & Billy Lopez Segura on the Exploder F18,  several good scores in every condition but they need to put some more solid starts.

These top 5 above are also the more serious local contenders for the Worlds in two weeks.
So for the designs it was infusion MKII, Phantom, Phantom, Phantom & Exploder. Excellent mix of brands and equipment.

For me the highlight of the event was a 3rd the last day on the tricky bumpy conditions described above, We had a good start and we were in the top 3 the whole race, I had several 1 to 1 matchups with MKIIs and I had better angle and speed. The race was won by the Exploder followed by an MKII.

The infusion 2009 MKI with longboards I’m sailing is a rocket, and it´s impressive perf for a 2009 boat, which was about the last ones built in the US.
It was a joy to race in the F18 again, slowly I’m getting in rhythm again, I have the Arg Nats left for more training, but really happy on that solid 3rd which is my target for the Worlds, to put at least one or more of those, with that I will be done.
But greatest satisfaction is seeing the camaraderie of the local fleet and how focused all are.

On the rest of the fleet Jason Hess from Guatemala is getting the pace of the C2 and progressively scoring better, he will have a brand new spi and better sails for the Worlds so we expect him to do good, being on e of the top H16 racers in the World much can be expected from him
From Chile we have some boats already here, and Pablo Gallyas & Isidora Urrutia were really fast in some races too with the latest factory Goodall C2.

This weekend is free, and next one (21-23) we’ll have the Arg Nats, and the following weekend the Worlds.

Top ten below, full results semanadebuenosaires.org.ar/home/resultados/f18/