Ed Wright, Gold Cup winner in 2010, took the first two races of the 2023 Finn Gold Cup, which opened at the Coconut Grove Sailing Club Friday.
The leading places went to the playsheet, with Wright, Domonkos Nemeth (HUN), Federico Colaninno (ITA) and Miguel Fernandez (ESP) finishing in that order in both races.
Wright with 2pts, now leads from Nemeth on 4pts, Colaninno with 6pts and Fernandez on 8pts.
European Championship bronze medalist, Laurent Hay (FRA) is in fifth with 13pts and Paul Mckenzie (CAN) sixth with 15pts.
This is a tight leading group. Nemeth won bronze at the 2022 Finn Gold Cup as well as winning the Finn Silver Cup, for the U23 World Championship.
Fernandez is the 2022 European Champion, hoping to do the double. And Laurent Hay, is World No. 1 and last year’s European Championship bronze medalist.
Ed Wright has not sailed a Finn regatta since the 2019 Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne, but is very happy to be back in the boat.
“We had two lovely races today, maybe 10-15, maybe sometimes more. I scored two bullets, so starting the week off well.
2023 Finn Gold Cup – Leaders after Race 2 (57 entries)
1st GBR 111 Ed Wright 1 1 – – 2 pts
2nd HUN 80 Domonkos Nemeth 2 2 – – 4 pts
3rd ITA 171 Federico Colaninno 3 3 – – 6 pts
4th ESP 161 Miguel Fernandez 4 4 – – 8 pts
5th FRA 75 Laurent HAY 8 5 – – 13 pts
6th AUS 22 Paul Mckenzie 5 10 – – 15 pts
7th BRA 32 Pedro Lodovici 9 7 – – 16 pts
8th USA 16 Rodion Mazin 12 6 – – 18 pts
9th USA 186 James Golden 6 13 – – 19 pts
10th BRA 53 Pedro Trouche 7 17 – – 24 pts
11th USA 86 Peter Sangmeister 17 8 – – 25 pts
12th USA 69 John F Dane 14 11 – – 25 pts
13th USA 81 Jack Jennings 11 14 – – 25 pts
14th NZL 2 Ray Hall 15 12 – – 27 pts
15th NED 977 Sjoerd Hofland 13 15 – – 28 pts
16th POR 73 Nuno ES Silva 18 16 – – 34 pts
17th FRA 99 Marc Allain des Beauvais 16 20 – – 36 pts
18th FRA 38 michel audoin 24 19 – – 43 pts
19th USA 5272 Chris Raab 21 23 – – 44 pts
20th NED 67 Remko Boot 19 29 – – 48 pts
