Etchells Worlds – US crews in top three overall after Day 3

by RHKYC Media on 4 Nov 2015 Today marked the mid-point of the Etchells World Championships in Hong Kong, with five out of nine races run in three days of a six-day programme.

The weather in Hong Kong played ball and put out 11 to 14kts of ENE breeze, which held pretty steady for most of the day, then tracked right and softened mid-afternoon.

Right on schedule, PRO Kevin Wilson sounded the warning signal for race four having set the windward mark at 1.8nm. In contrast to day two, only Magpie pushed the boundary to the point where they were over at the start, but then returned under X-ray to exonerate themselves. The fleet split evenly up the right and left of the course, with Frank van Kempen reaching the windward mark at the top of the fleet ahead of Jean-Claude Strong on Yandoo XX and Steve Benjamin on Scimitar. Van Kempen led around the starboard gate with Benjamin choosing the port gate in second and Argyle Campbell in third, but on the second beat, it was Strong who made the gains to round first and stay in control down the run to claim her first bullet of the series, with van Kempen in second and Benjamin in third.

After a brief hiatus to re-set the line and check that the breeze was still stable, Wilson started race five which for the first time featured a clean start for the entire fleet. Brendon Jukes led the first beat on Jukes of Hazzard but having chosen the port side of the run had fallen into third by the gate and lost further ground to finish 12th. The eventual race winner, Graeme Taylor gave a run down of Magpie’s race, saying “we had a good start and not a lot of tacks, we got on to the left and managed to keep clear, which makes it much easier to sail your own race rather than being dictated to by other boats.”

After five races, Magpie sits seventh overall, with second paced boat Gen XY in sixth. Matty Chew reflected “we had a very difficult race – we had a great start and were leading early, then we lost some places but we got them back on the second upwind, so all in all we had a good race!”

With a nine and a three for the day, Noel Drennan’s Baby Doll sits 12th overall and in a general recap noted “we had a good day on the water today – it was good racing but shifty, so don’t book your tickets! There were plenty of opportunities to make up lost ground here and there. We seemed to be going into the top mark in similar company so when you do well, you’re rewarded and when you do badly, you’re punished.”

Skip Dieball’s Aretas remains first overall at the halfway stage, with a discard kicking in after the sixth race. Second placed Steve Benjamin was unperturbed, saying “I’m very happy we’re still in the running. They were very tricky conditions – we finished up second in the first race but we didn’t sail that great in the second race. We went too far left and we had opportunities to get right which we should have taken, but didn’t. We paid the price and ended up 11th.”

The series features nine races, with the discard kicking in after six. The PRO’s intention is to try and run two races tomorrow, so that the final two days can feature one long race per day with an upwind Click here for full results and here for the Official website

 

Rank	Skipper	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	Total	Nett
First	Skip Dieball	2.0	3.0	6.0	5.0	13.0					29.0	29.0
Second	Steve Benjamin	1.0	5.0	11.0	3.0	11.0					31.0	31.0
Third	Marvin Beckmann	5.0	2.0	10.0	12.0	8.0					37.0	37.0
Fourth	Ante Razmilovic	7.0	12.0	5.0	7.0	6.0					37.0	37.0
Fifth	Argyle Campbell	9.0	19.0	1.0	4.0	7.0					40.0	40.0
Sixth	Matthew Chew	4.0	23.0	4.0	8.0	2.0					41.0	41.0
Seventh	Graeme Taylor	10.0	15.0	3.0	15.0	1.0					44.0	44.0
Eighth	Jeremy Thorp	6.0	8.0	2.0	23.0	5.0					44.0	44.0
Ninth	Dirk Kneulman	12.0	9.0	15.0	10.0	4.0					50.0	50.0
10th	Mark Thornburrow	21.0	1.0	13.0	6.0	17.0					58.0	58.0
11th	Frank van Kempen	25.0	4.0	21.0	2.0	18.0					70.0	70.0
12th	Noel Drennan	16.0	39.0	7.0	9.0	3.0					74.0	74.0
13th	Peter Backe	3.0	17.0	9.0	20.0	29.0					78.0	78.0
14th	Chris Hampton	29.0	10.0	8.0	19.0	23.0					89.0	89.0
15th	Seamus McHugh	20.0	18.0	24.0	14.0	16.0					92.0	92.0
16th	Laurence Mead	15.0	16.0	31.0	13.0	19.0					94.0	94.0
17th	Jamie McWilliam	19.0	7.0	20.0	26.0	26.0					98.0	98.0
18th	Jeanne-Claude Strong	35.0	26.0	16.0	1.0	27.0					105.0	105.0
19th	Mark Watson III	23.0	14.0	44.0 UFD	22.0	9.0					112.0	112.0
20th	Greg Farrell	11.0	34.0	22.0	24.0	22.8 RDGa					113.8	113.8
21st	Jake Gunther	17.0	6.0	44.0 DSQ	34.0	15.0					116.0	116.0
22nd	Richard Burrows	22.0	11.0	28.0	11.0	44.0 RET					116.0	116.0
23rd	Jan Muysken	8.0	22.0	17.0	42.0	28.0					117.0	117.0
24th	Mark Jukes	26.0	31.0	12.0	17.0	31.0					117.0	117.0
25th	John Warlow	14.0	24.0	27.0	37.0	20.0					122.0	122.0
26th	Robert Hanna	18.0	28.0	23.0	29.0	25.0					123.0	123.0
27th	Doug Flynn	33.0	33.0	30.0	18.0	10.0					124.0	124.0
28th	Martin Webster	39.0	20.0	29.0	25.0	14.0					127.0	127.0
29th	David Franks	24.0	13.0	14.0	41.0	36.0					128.0	128.0
30th	Brendon Jukes	38.0	29.0	19.0	31.0	12.0					129.0	129.0
31st	Bill Steele	32.0	25.0	26.0	16.0	32.0					131.0	131.0
32nd	Rob Goddard	27.0	35.0	25.0	28.0	21.0					136.0	136.0
33rd	Shane Guanaria	13.0	21.0	44.0 UFD	36.0	33.0					147.0	147.0
34th	Marty Kaye	34.0	32.0	18.0	35.0	30.0					149.0	149.0
35th	Nicholas Stagg	43.0	30.0	33.0	21.0	22.0					149.0	149.0
36th	Willem Van Walt Meijer	41.0	27.0	35.0	39.0	24.0					166.0	166.0
37th	Denis Martinet	31.0	44.0 UFD	32.0	27.0	34.0					168.0	168.0
38th	Michael Haehnel	28.0	37.0	34.0	33.0	44.0 DSQ					176.0	176.0
39th	Ian Fleming	40.0	36.0	36.0	30.0	37.0					179.0	179.0
40th	Mark Whitehead	30.0	44.0 DNF	44.0 DNC	32.0	38.0					188.0	188.0
41st	Mark Yeadon	36.0	38.0	37.0	40.0	41.0					192.0	192.0
42nd	Gordon Hinds	37.0	40.0	38.0	43.0	39.0					197.0	197.0
43rd	Thomas Cheung	42.0	41.0	39.0	38.0	40.0					200.0	200.0