U.S. Olympic Sailing Trials : Reynolds Survives Final Challenge

Only in sailing, it’s not always over when it’s over.

Mark Reynolds, 32, of San Diego, won the Star class of the U.S. Olympic sailing trials Friday after surviving a week of mediocre finishes--16th Friday, a new low--a breakdown scare and, finally, a race jury decision.

Late Friday night, he was forced to endure extra anxiety because of a rival’s action that could have extended the issue into today’s final race.

After Reynolds and crew Hal Haenel had toasted their victory at the dock and talked about it with reporters, Peter Wright of River Forest, Ill., threw a cloud over the result.

Wright finished fourth in Thursday’s race but was disqualified for crossing the starting line before the gun and failing to restart--a violation that the race jury confirmed by videotape.

But after Friday’s race, in which he placed second, Wright requested that the hearing be re-opened and the tape reviewed again. Friday morning, Wright and crew Todd Cozzens took committee member Pete Case and the tape to a local video store to check it with high-resolution equipment.

“Slo-mo, stop action,” Cozzens said. “You can see our number, everything--clear.”

“You can see us dip (below the line),” Wright said.

Case was noncommittal, and the jury refused to review the tape with equipment that Wright and Cozzens had borrowed and brought to the San Diego Yacht Club.

If Wright had overturned his disqualification, he would have had 40.4 points instead of 49.4, moving him into second place, only 9.7 behind Reynolds, who has 30.7.

Just another challenge for Reynolds to overcome. After winning four of the first five races in more consistent wind last week, his finishes got progressively worse in the tricky breezes several miles off Coronado.

“We had such a big lead, we had to be conservative and the other guys had to be aggressive,” Reynolds said. “Here my style is going up the middle (of the windward legs), and we’ve missed a lot of shifts on the left.”

Also, 10 minutes before Thursday’s race, Reynolds and Haenel heard something snap-- ping .

“A shroud track had broken,” Reynolds said.

That might have led to something even more serious, like his mast falling down, so Reynolds spent the next few minutes scrambling to jury rig the problem.

“That was the scariest thing in this regatta,” he said.

Until Friday night.

Although John Kostecki, 24, of San Francisco was declared a clear, uncontested winner in the Soling class Friday, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for him, either.

When his boat flipped while being towed out to the race course one day last week, he and one of his crew, Bob Billingham, almost drowned. But they sailed superbly in the mentally trying conditions to post a two-week string of 4-1-2-3-3-1-3-1-3 in the 22-boat fleet.

And, after the agony, Kostecki was too weary for ecstasy.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” he said, slumping into a chair. “It was very intense racing. With these conditions, it makes it more intense, and having 10 races makes it very tough.

“After today’s race, I feel physically weak, and it wasn’t a physical race. It’s just that all the concentration and pressure takes a lot out of you.”

Kostecki and his crew of Billingham and Will Baylis came in as the favorites, having won two of the last three Soling world championships.

“Bob and Bill and I have been sailing together for three years now,” Kostecki said. “We have good boat speed and we don’t take any risks.”

The success is another example of Kostecki’s maturity. As a younger sailor, he concedes, he had a reputation of being “very exciteable, (with a) temper. But I’ve grown up a lot, and a lot of experience has changed me.”

In other trials at Newport, R.I., four berths were determined: John Shadden, Long Beach, men’s 470; Allison Jolly, Valencia, women’s 470; Pete Melvin, Long Beach, Tornado, and Paul Foerster, Corpus Christi, Tex., Flying Dutchman.

They join Brian Ledbetter of San Diego, who clinched the Finn spot Thursday at Marblehead, Mass.

If Reynolds remains the Star winner, Californians will have claimed six of the seven Olympic berths, with only the sailboards at Newport still to be resolved.

Mike O’Bryan of San Diego won Friday’s race to move into third place but can’t overtake leader Bert Rice Jr., Gulf Breeze, Fla., and runner-up Mike Gebhardt, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.

Shadden, who won his sixth straight race Friday, indicated that the competition with his nearest rival, Morgan Reeser of Miami, Fla., had become bitter this week.

The two were involved in a protest Sunday when Shadden, claiming right of way as the leeward boat, tapped Reeser’s craft lightly.

Both boats filed protests which were disallowed.

“He tried to re-open the hearing, saying he had new evidence,” Shadden said by phone. “Then he tried to protest us on Rule 75--’fair sailing’--saying that we had lied during the protest hearing.

“Every race since then we’ve been in a match race at the start. He’s been trying to force us over (the starting line) early or foul us out. But Charlie and I have a lot of experience in that. We just work him to one side of the course and then go where we want to go.

“People are after you, and they’re going to do anything they can.”

Reeser won the first race, but since then it’s been all Shadden, who finished second in another race but moved up to first when Bill Draheim of Austin, Tex., was disqualified.

“I don’t know if we really dominated,” Shadden said. “We’ve had some close races. We’ve always been pushed.

“Things have gone against us, but we’ve kept our composure and done well. This has been a good two weeks for us.”

The Shadden-McKee team--third in the 470 world championships at Haifa, Israel, in March--is a combination of two also-rans from the ’84 trials when Shadden was fifth, with Mike Segerblom as crew, and McKee placed ninth, with Chris Lanzinger as crew.