U.S. Olympic Sailing Trials : Navy Lt. Brian Ledbetter Gains a Berth in Finn Class

Navy Lt. Brian Ledbetter of San Diego has qualified for the U.S. Olympic sailing team, while John Shadden of Long Beach and Allison Jolly of Valencia are close.

Ledbetter won Thursday’s Finn race at Marblehead, Mass., his fourth victory in eight races, leaving him with an insurmountable lead going into today’s final race.

The trials at Newport, R.I. were canceled because of fog for the second time in three days, all but assuring Shadden and Jolly of the U.S. berths in the men’s and women’s 470 dinghy classes.

Shadden, who has won five straight races with crew Charlie McKee after an opening second-place finish, needs only a 10th or better placing in one of the last two possible races.

Jolly, has has four wins and two seconds, and crew Lynne Jewell need finish only seventh or better in either race.

Both will clinch if another day’s racing is lost.

Ledbetter, 24, did not compete in the 1984 trials but won the last four Finn national titles.

The U.S. has never won a gold medal in the one-man dinghy class. John Bertrand of Anaheim Hills and Peter Barrett of Pewaukee Lake, Wis., won silvers in ’84 and ‘64, respectively.

“The boys here are reminding me of that,” Ledbetter said by phone from Marblehead. “Whoever beats me is gonna have to sail really well. I’m gonna give it my best.”

Ledbetter dominated his trials despite a general lack of the strong winds he prefers. Except for the first and eighth races, which he won handily, the wind fluctuated between 5 and 8 knots.

“I was just slugging it out, trying to sail well in the light air, and then getting the knockout punch in the breeze,” he said.

In most races he had mediocre starts but patiently and skillfully worked his way up through the 42-boat fleet in races lasting about three hours.

“My starts have been conservatively poor, making sure I’m not over early,” Ledbetter said. “But I had good speed and my concentration was good, plus I had my fair share of luck.”

Ledbetter, a 1985 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is based at the San Diego Naval Training Center. He started sailing Sabots out of the San Diego Yacht Club at age 8. He will marry Jennifer Buchan of Bellevue, Wash., in December. She is the daughter of Bill Buchan, who won an Olympic gold medal in the Star class in ’84.

In the other trials at San Diego, John Kostecki, 24, of San Francisco closed in on the Soling berth by skillfully playing the shifty, diminishing 6- to 12-knot breezes to first place in Thursday’s race, his third victory.

In a quirk of the complex Olympic scoring system, in which competitors will be able to throw out their worst two races, Dave Chapin of Newport Beach is in second place with 42 points to Kostecki’s 20.1, but only Gerard Coleman of Newport, R.I., with 43.7 has a mathematical chance to overtake Kostecki, and he would have to win the last two races to do it.

“I still feel a lot of pressure because it’s not all the way over,” Kostecki said. “I’m not going to let up one bit. It’s so close it’s scary.”

Kostecki passed Brodie Cobb of Dallas on the last leg after trying to cover Coleman earlier in the race.

Paul Cayard, the current Star class world champion, won his first race as leader Mark Reynolds continued to slip, this time to 10th.

Reynolds took a calculated risk by concentrating on covering his nearest threat, Vince Brun, whom he drove back to 14th, but that let Cayard back into the chase with two days remaining.

The only three contenders are Reynolds with 30.7 points, Brun with 51.1 and Cayard with 54.7.