Upping the stakes

Iain Percy’s Mader-built Juan K design wasn’t the only new and exotic Star boat in Qingdao last year... there was also, of course, the shadowy and then still slightly mythical P Star from Marc Pickel’s German programme

The Star is approaching its 100th anniversary and yet – remarkably – at this year’s 82nd annual Bacardi Cup on Miami’s Biscayne Bay there was still plenty to talk about for aficionados of boat development.

There is no question that Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl dominated the 82nd Bacardi Cup, but there was also real news from Team V-3, the three crews sailing the new P Star. With very different team profiles and ‘some good karma’, as skipper, Jon VanderMolen puts it, they had at least one boat in the top 10 in every race and finished respectably in sixth, ninth and 23rd overall.

Marc Pickel, the P Star builder and two-time German Olympic Star skipper, teamed up with 2002 Star World Champion Steve Mitchell in P2. Jon VanderMolen, more at home on Michigan’s Gull Lake, was sailing with Finn sailor Geoff Ewenson in P5. And for his first Star regatta, 2003 College Sailor of the Year and World Team Racing Champion skipper Clay Bischoff had talented Canadian crew Tyler Bjorn in the bow of P1.

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