HARRY MELGES LEADS AFTER FIRST DAY OF RACING AT ACURA SORC

As darkness fell over Miami last night the 27 strong Melges 24 fleet finally made it back to the dock after the first two races in the 60th Acura SORC. The day started with a 3 hour postponement waiting for breeze which eventually began to fill in mid afternoon.

Race 1 took place in a 5-8 knot sea-breeze. Henri Samuel and Paula Zubrzyck took full advantage of the starboard end line bias and picked the best shifts up the right hand side of the beat leaving Zubrzyck leading into the first mark closely followed by Samuel. Harry Melges, guest helming for Jeff Jones, was chasing hard and picked his gybes and tacks to perfection to take the first race. Morgan Reeser, driving Neil Sullivan's "M-Fatic", also put in a good challenge but wasn't quite able to get past the early leaders and ended up fourth.

By the start of race 2 the breeze was up to 15-18 knots and Morgan Reeser got a flying start at the right hand end of the line. After a short starboard tack he took off for the right hand corner with Harry Melges, Henri Samuel, Brian Porter and Keith Musto in close pursuit, each of the boats working the shifts for all they were worth.

The breeze started to drop off to 10-12 knots on the second beat and a classic dog fight was on for the lead. Brian Porter lead away from the final weather mark, but Morgan was right on his tail and just managed to squeeze past him to take the line with Harry Melges third and Argyle Campbell fourth.

Harry Melges goes into today's racing leading by 1 point from Morgan Reeser. Henri Samuel lies in 3rd with Keith Musto, Brian Porter, Argyle Campbell and Paula Zubrzyck all tied in 4th just 7 points behind the leader.

Provisional Overall Results: (Full Results at acurasorc.com)