During a delay in an airport terminal recently, I went through the exercise of extracting US data from the recently issued World Ranking List. The Gorbolds and Wrenns finished in the top 50 and so will bring Q points to the 99 list. We had 25 members and six regattas in the 98 list. Three more events rostered fewer than seven teams. These small events do not rate WRL points. Five more sailors participated only in these small events and therefor do not appear in the list. In adjusting Enno Kramers score to reflect US events only, I included his win at the Den Oever Worlds, rather than remove points from US sailors who also went to the Worlds.
 
 
US position sail number Helmsman Crew WRL pos. WRL points
1 GBR-367 Jonathan Gorbold Anna Gorbold 35 205.81
2 USA-310 Jeff Wrenn Chris Wrenn 48 168.65
3 USA-1435 Peter Wells Barbara Wells 54 162.40
4 NED-26 Enno Kramer Hein Dijksterhuis 6 129.50
5 USA-410 Lin Robson Serge Jorgensen 91 125.57
6 USA-7 Jonathan Clapp Gary Gleason 94 122.42
7 USA-1426 Nigel Gorbold David Klein 96 118.89
8 USA-188 Michael Freitag Dennis Anderson 97 117.25
9 USA-251 Tim Sayles Pavel Ruzicka 102 111.53
10 USA-1474 Bill Hamilton Doug Hamilton 118 100.10
11 USA-98 Jon Evans Anne Marie Evans 122 93.80
12 USA-102 Roy Stone Mike Barlick 128 89.60
13 USA-188 Dave Fagen III Dennis Anderson 129 88.02
14 USA-167 Paul Hemker Jason Breeden 135 80.49
15 USA-189 Carl Boller Jim Dodd 161 67.20
16 USA-861 Peter Bushnell Bill Water 170 63.00
17 USA-195 Greg Whiffen S.Olsen 178 60.20
18 USA-106 Greg Cole Tim Gorbold 230 34.30
19 USA-175 Chuck Linn Adam Templton 243 32.90
20 CAN-17 Steve Graff Barbara Graff 245 32.90
21 USA-153 Doug Dommermuth Marco Colombo 251 32.20
22 USA-251 Ted Castner Emily Castner 265 30.80
23 USA-181 Dave Fagen Dennis Anderson 283 29.40
24 USA-80 Aaron Pincus B. Lassier 299 28.00
25 USA-530 Adam Levithan   305 27.30
end of list 346 0.00

 I like the WRL because it recognizes participation as much as skill. It is also a return on investment of our membership dues. In anticipating a 99 WRL, it is apparent that we will not look as good as we did in 98. Four important perennial events failed to muster the seven entrants needed to qualify for points. This is disappointing for me, as those were four of the five events I attended in 99. Furthermore, some of the 99 race results have never been forwarded to the International FDCO for inclusion in the International Bulletin and WRL calculations. We should always take advantage of the chance to publish our results in this world wide journal, particularly as we have already paid for the space with our dues.

2/15/00  JFC  USA-7