Goodwill, like that perpetuated by Eichenlaub for so long, resonated at these Games. U.S. sailors--at first wary about the reaction their presence might illicit--quickly made friends, housing in the `village` with athletes from 42 nations (in North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean) and interacting with a multitude of Dominican locals enlisted to keep the cogs working on a very large, complicated Games machine. By the end of the August 4-10 sailing competition, Team USA had claimed two gold medals out of eight available and lived out what most of the members called a once-in-a-lifetime dream.

US SAILING's Olympic Sailing Committee sent a full team to compete in the Pan Am Games' seven sailing classes (eight disciplines). Two of them--Laser (men) and Mistral (men and women)--utilized the same equipment used in the Olympic Regatta. Five were non-Olympic classes but mirrored those found in the Olympics. These were Laser Radial (women), Hobie 16, J/24, Snipe and Sunfish (all open).

With a schedule of two races per day for six days, the sailing event was headquartered at Club Nautico on the East side of Santo Domingo. One hundred and fourteen sailors from 17 countries competed on the brilliant blue waters of Andres Bay. Only Canada fielded as large a team as the U.S., with Brazil following closely with a 12-man team. The smallest team was Antigua's with one athlete.

USA clinched its first gold medal when Mistral Women's sailor Lanee Butler (Aliso Viejo, Calif.), turned in two race victories on the day before competition ended. Adding the victories to six others in her 10-race scoreline, she had made it mathematically impossible for anyone to catch her in the following day's two-race finals. She sat out her last two races due to severely blistered hands that she wished to heal before she began sailing again in five days at the Olympic test event in Athens.

`To win here gives me a lot of confidence going to Athens,` said Butler. `If I had finished fourth or fifth here I would have known I have a lot more to do.`

Butler's early rival, Dominique Vallee of Canada, whom she had pushed farther and farther behind for a whopping 12-point spread in the end, claimed the silver medal while Argentina took the bronze.

`I'm ecstatic I won the gold medal, because I haven't competed in an international competition since the Sydney Olympics,` said Butler, who only last November announced she would try for her fourth Olympics. `I came here not knowing how I'd compare and found I'm exactly where I need to be.` Butler is now a four-time Pan Am Games Medallist, with three of those being gold ('03, ’99 and '91) and one being bronze ('95).

With five other classes out of medal contention by the last day, USA focused its energy on the J/24 team of skipper Tim Healy (Newport, R.I.) and crew members Nick Judson (Nantucket, Mass.), Gordon Borges (Newport, R.I.) and Davenport Crocker (Cohasset, Mass.). The sailors, with steady tenacity, had managed to climb to the top of the scoreboard, but with only two points cushioning them against an upset by Brazil.

In the first of two final races, USA confidently started near the leeward end of the starting line, then footed out quickly from underneath the fleet to lead all the way around the course and leave Brazil two boats behind them at the finish.

`We had two shots at taking the gold,` said Healy after racing that day. `We could either wrap it up with a first in either of today's two races or with a second in either race, as long as Brazil was behind us. We were hoping to do it in one race, and we did.` As such, Healy's team retired before the day's second race began. Brazil retired as well, having secured the silver medal, while Chile sailed the second race to take bronze.

USA's J/24 team has been sailing together `solidly` for two seasons and in 2002 claimed second at the J/24 Worlds. Healy, with Borges as crew, also won the J/24 North American Championship in 2000 and again in 2001 with both Borges and Judson crewing.

`I think I can speak for the entire J/24 team that this was an awesome experience,` said Healy. `We are used to sailing on our own, so we enjoyed every aspect of being with the other sailors, coaches and support staff and representing the U.S. this way.`

`The way I look at it,` said Team Leader Fred Hagedorn (Chicago, Ill.), `Twenty five percent of our events yielded gold medals, and all of our team members had significant moments of glory.`

For Snipe sailors Henry Filter (Stevensville, Md).and Lisa Griffith (San Diego, Calif./Phillipsburg, N.J.), those moments of glory happened at the end of the regatta. Going into the last day in sixth place, Filter and Griffith won both of their final races, knocking off both Argentina and Canada in overall scoring to move up to fourth. `We weren't even thinking about Argentina, which had been in fourth going into the last day,` said Filter. `We were focusing on Canada, because we had to beat them if we wanted take fifth overall.` Filter added that Brazil and Cuba, which ultimately took gold and silver medals, were busy match racing each other for their podium positions and allowed for some breathing room. In every race, however, places two through six were finishing within seconds of each other and Filter's team simply was not getting the break it needed to claw its way out of sixth. `Finally we had the conditions that we're really fast in: 15-16 knots, which is a step up from what it had been on our course for the rest of the regatta,` said Filter. Taking the bronze medal in this class was Uruguay.

In Sunfish, USA's Jeff Linton (Tampa, Fla.) had to battle--among other notables--seven-time World Champion Eduardo Cordero from Venezuela and two-time World Champion Malcolm Smith from Bermuda. Not surprisingly, the Venezuelan and Bermudan claimed the top two podium spots while a Dominican sailor claimed the last. Though he typically trades out winning regattas with Smith, Linton posted a sixth-place finish overall. `I just wish it blew and there were waves like this at home. Then I would have been more prepared,` said Linton in his final analysis.

Indeed large rolling waves topped by chop proved to be the undoing of some and the ride to greater gains for others.

`This was a pure boat speed regatta,` said Assistant Coach Geoff Becker. `The ones who knew how to deal with the waves were making huge gains downwind. Our dinghy classes certainly struggled with it, because the sailors are more used to the kind of waves you might see in a Bay. These are real ocean waves: steeper, more of them and sometimes more confused.`

Laser Radial sailor Sally Barkow (Pine Lake, Wisc.), who had to make a quick transition from her Olympic Yngling keelboat for this regatta, steadily gained upwind speed over the course of the regatta but struggled with downwind speed and finished fifth overall. `This was a cool experience,` said Barkow, who hopes to win USA's Olympic Yngling Trials and have the Olympic experience for real in 2004. `It also got me better prepared for my Trials, because I will be sailing in a small fleet at those, too.` Mexico secured the gold medal, and Canada and Argentina claimed silver and bronze medals today.

In Lasers it was Brazil's Robert Scheidt, the two-time Pan Am medallist and six-time world champion that walked away with the regatta. He never finished anything but first in all 12 races and sometimes then by hundreds of yards. USA's Benjamin Richardson (Gloucester, Mass.) moved early into fifth position overall and maintained it through to the end. After Scheidt clinched the gold early, Canada and Chile took silver and bronze. `I'm disappointed because I beat both the silver and bronze medallists at the Spa regatta this year,` said Richardson. `That's the way it goes, though: one regatta it's one way, another regatta it's another way.`

In Hobie 16s, the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Mary Ann Hess ( Napa, Calif.) finished sixth overall while Puerto Rico's 2004 Olympic representative in Tornado class, Enrique Figueroa, easily won the regatta and Mexico and Guatemala made final plays for silver and bronze respectively. `The competition was as stiff as we had anticipated,` said Mary Ann Hess. `We basically sail at the amateur level, and the others here are world champions, so it was hard for us, but we had fun.`

Peter Wells (Newport Beach, Calif.) sailed in Mistral Men's class to finish sixth overall. `I learned some important lessons here,` said Wells, who is gunning for the Olympics and struggled this regatta with getting his brand new board up to speed,` and relearned some lessons I already knew. They will help me.` Brazil, Argentina and Canada took the top-three medal positions.

The Pan American Games, held every four years since their inception in 1951, are always held the summer preceding the Olympic Games. The event showcases all 28 Olympic sports and eight non-Olympic events.

Additional information is available at www.ussailing.org/Olympics/PanAm/ Full results are available at www.fdvela.org.

FINAL RESULTS Top-Three and U.S.

Hobie 16 Open (9 boats)

1. E. Figueroa, PUR, (2)-(2)-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1; 10

2. A. Noriega, MEX, (7)-1-4-2-2-3-4-2-(5)-2-2-2; 24

3. JI Maegli, GUA, 3-3-2-3-4-(5)-3-3-2-4-(5)-3; 30

6. Paul/Mary Ann Hess, USA, 5-6-3-6-5-4-(8)-(8)-8-7-6-7; 57

J/24 Open (11 boats)

1. Tim Healy/Davenport Crocker/Gordon Borges,/Nick Judson, USA, 1-2-1-3-(5)-1-2-1-4-2-1-(12); 18

1. M. Santa Cruz, BRA, 2-1-2-1-1-(7)-3-2-3-4-3-(12); 22

3. A. Gonzalez, CHI, 7-3-(11)-4-3-2-4-(12)-1-10-4-4; 42

Laser Male (15 boats)

1. Robert Scheidt, BRA, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-(16)-(16); 10

2. B. Luttmer, CAN, 3-(5)-2-3-3-3-2-5-2-(6)-1-1; 25

3. M. del Solar, CHI, 4-4-(16)-2-2-(5)-5-2-4-2-2-2; 29

5. Ben Richardson, USA, 5-3-5-6-5-(11)-(14)-4-6-9-5-3; 51

Laser Radial Female (11 boats)

1. T.E. Calles, MEX, 1-1-3-1-1-2-3-1-2-1-(12)-(12); 16

2. K. Rasa, CAN, 2-3-1-(6)-4-(5)-2-3-1-4-3-1; 24

3. F. Cerntti, ARG, 3-5-2-3-2-(6)-1-2-4-(6)-2-2; 26

5. Sally Barkow, USA, 4-4-(6)-4-3-4-6-5-3-(8)-4-3; 40

Mistral Male (10 boats)

1. R. Santos, BRA, (3)-(3)-2-2-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1; 13

2. M. Galvan, ARG, (2)-1-1-1-2-1-2-2-2-2-2-(11); 16

3. K. Stittle, CAN, 1-2-3-6-4-3-4-3-5-4-(11)-(11); 35

6. Peter Wells, USA, (7)-6-5-4-3-6-5-7-6-(11)-5-4; 51

Mistral Female (7 boats)

1. Lanee Butler, USA, 2-1-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-1-(8)-(8); 12

2. D. Vallee, CAN, 1-3-3-3-(4)-4-3-2-2-(4)-1-2; 24

3. C. Walther, ARG, (5)-2-5-2-3-(DSQ)-2-3-5-2-3-3; 30

Snipe Open (8 boats)

1. B. Amorim, BRA, 1-(3)-1-(3)-1-1-2-2-2-3-3-3; 19

2. N. Manso, CUB, 3-1-2-2-2-(7)-3-1-1-2-(5)-2; 19

3. S. Silveira, URU, 2-4-3-1-(6)-4-1-(7)-4-1-2-5; 27

4. Henry Filter/Lisa Griffith, USA, (6)-6-(7)-4-4-6-4-5-5-6-1-1; 42

Sunfish Open (11 boats)

1. E. Cordero, VEN, 1-5-1-1-1-3-2-1-1-5-(12)-(12); 21

2. M. Smith, BER, 2-3-2-(7)-6-(7)-4-3-3-1-1-1; 26

3. R. Aguayo, DOM, 5-6-3-5-2-1-6-5-2-(9)-4-2; 35

6. Jeff Linton, USA, 3-8-7-6-7-8-9-2-(12)-3-6-4; 54

Source: US Sailing - Jan Harley