Fireball World Championship - Leader board shakeup on day 2

by Fireball International Class (As Amended by ISAF) on 1 Apr 2014 Day two at the Fireball Worlds brought shifty conditions and a shakeup at the top of the leader board.
Overnight leaders Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey (GBR) dropped down to sixth after a DSQ in the first race of the day. Their British rivals Nathan Bachelor and Sam Pascoe moved into the top spot after a consistent day of two third positions, followed closely by a chasing pack of five Australian pairings.

Conditions in Thailand were sunny with 10 knots of breeze with up to 20 degree wind shifts on some parts of the course. It was wind wide tide meaning the windward legs were hard on all the sailors, as everyone worked hard to keep their boat moving forwards through the water through the water.

Race 1 saw Birrell and Brearey first around the windward mark, taking off on the first reach to extend their lead. Following closesly behind in second were Batchelor and Pascoe then Heather MacFarlane and Chris Payne (AUS) in third.

The positions held through much of the race, until Birrell and Brearey decided that they wanted to practice their match racing tactics with Batchelor and Pascoe. A couple of dozen tacks ensued, letting MacFarlane and Payne slip through and get ahead of both of them. In their hurry to catch up, Birrell and Brearey decided to get physical and ended up getting whistled for kinetics, their penalty turns on the starboard layline were some cause for concern eventually leading to a DSQ in the protest room.

MacFarlane and Payne had no trouble for the rest of the race and took first very comfortably. The battle for second and third between Batchelor and Pascoe and Greg Allinson and Allen Blenkle (AUS) was where the real fight was, Allinson and Blenkle managed to catch them on the final hitch to the line for a second place finish.

First around the windward mark in Race 2 was Schulz and Sheppard followed closely by Birrell and Brearey, both teams taking advantage of the increase in wind speed and smaller waves on the left hand side of the course. The rest of the fleet rounded the windward mark within a couple of boat lengths of each other, the fleet split going down the first run with Thomas Gordon and Jack Fletcher (AUS) making a substantial gain.

The second beat saw some of the early front runners fall back and let the usual suspects make their way to the front. The two reaches caused some problems for the top sailors, Schulz and Sheppard broke a kite sheet and dropped to third while Allison and Blenkle had to drop their spinnaker to make the gybe mark.

The last couple of legs saw a number of position changes. Schulz and Sheppard recovered from their breakage to sneak up to second again, Birrell and Brearey held onto to their lead with Schulz and Sheppard in second and Batchelor and Pascoe kept MacFarlane and Payne at bay on the final run to take third.

Results subject to gear weight confirmation

No	Sailno	Name	Scores	1	2	3	4
1	GBR 15087	Nathan Batchelor, Sam Pascoe	10.0	2	2	3	3
2	AUS 15048	Heather MacFarlane, Chris Payne	14.0	3	6	1	4
3	AUS 15062	Ben Schulz, Doug Sheppard	14.0	4	4	4	2
4	AUS 15032	Greg Allinson, Allen Blenkle	19.0	7	5	2	5
5	AUS 15071	Thomas Gordon, Jack Fletcher	21.0	5	3	5	8
6	GBR 15107	Christian Birrell, Sam Brearey	25.0	1	1	dsq	1
7	GBR 15092	Veronica Falat, Ben Falat	31.0	9	7	9	6
8	FRA 14793	Erich Moser, Jean-Francois Nouel	32.0	8	9	8	7
9	CAN 15024	Joe Jospe, Tom Egli	33.0	6	11	6	10
10	AUS 14814	Steve Goacher, Peter Crossley	37.0	10	8	10	9
11	SUI 14859	Christina Haerdi-Landerer, Cedric Landerer	48.0	11	14	12	11
12	AUS 14812	Dick McCulloch, Glenn Stewart	51.0	12	10	7	dnf
13	GBR 14887	Bryan Sargeant, William Sargeant	51.0	13	12	13	13
14	AUS 14510	Jim Hughes, Tom Hughes	57.0	15	19	11	12
15	RSA 14901	David Laing, Mark Dee	58.0	14	13	16	15
16	AUS 15076	Tim Ninnes, Taylor Neighbour	60.0	16	15	15	14
17	AUS 15011	Jaline Thompson-Kambas, Cameron Philcox	65.0	17	18	14	16
18	SUI 14921	Maja Suter, Thomas Boehm	69.0	19	16	17	17
19	AUS 14747	Daniel Wolch, Alan Schaiars	77.0	20	20	19	18
20	THA 10338	Jirawat Jodkby, Dylan Whitcraft	79.0	18	17	dnf	dnf
21	AUS 14265	Kevin Luff, Peta Luff	79.0	21	21	18	19

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