Sail Melbourne - Austrians hold lead in 49ers

by Craig Heydon on 16 Dec 2010
It was a very long day for the 49er crews at Sail Melbourne, after constant wind shifts caused the first race to be delayed and the course to be moved further offshore. When racing did get underway, the Austrian and New Zealand crews continued their dominance.

Four races later, one point separates them at the top of the leader board, with a long gap back to the chasing pack which includes Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen of Australia.

The Austrian pair of Delle Nico and Nikolaus Resch started with a ninth, but got back on track with a second, fourth and fifth to lead on 19 points after discarding the ninth which is their worst result to date.

'It was a stable day – we didn't do many mistakes,' said Resch. 'In the third race we had a bad start and went through the fleet, so that was good.'

Going into today, Kiwis Peter Burling and Blair Tuke's worst result had been a fourth. They started well, with second, fourth, second but had 'a shocker' in the final race to finish 18th. They can drop that result from their score, but as Blair said, 'We have to be a lot more careful now.' A second bad result would cost them dearly.

Outteridge and Jensen, like compatriots Page and Belcher in the 470, were very subdued when they came back to the de-rigging area. 'Parts of the race were good,' said Outteridge. 'We'd have a good start and a bad finish or a bad start and a good finish. We couldn't put it together.'

Outteridge looks tired, which is understandable as the abandonment yesterday was his first day off racing in two months. 'I'm not looking for excuses,' he said. 'I'm just trying to find out what the hell's going on.'

Barring several bad races by the Austrians and Kiwis, which is unlikely given their consistency so far this series, the Australians will struggle to win the regatta. They are in fifth place, 25 points behind the Austrians with five races left to sail. This will be only their third loss in 13 regattas sailing together, but the second in a row following Burling and Tuke's victory over them at Sail Sydney last week.

One champion who has found form is three times Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie. After a steady rather than spectacular start to the regatta, he won all three races today to lead the fleet by a single point over Zach Railey from the USA. Two Frenchmen, Jonathan Lobert and Thomas Le Breton are third and fourth.

Ainslie has had a long time away from the Finn, competing in the Louis Vuitton and World Match Race Tour events. He wrapped up the World Match Race title two weeks ago at the Monsoon Cup.

'I'm getting more comfortable in the boat, and starting to get the feel back,' he said. With a limit of three races a day for the heavyweight dinghy, there are just four more races to sail.

In the other single-handed dinghy, a major upset is on the cards. An Australian is in the dominant position and his name is Tom. But it isn't International Sailor of the Year Tom Slingsby.

Instead, Australian Development Squad member Tom Burton has a strong chance to become a full member of the Australian Sailing Team by finishing in the top three at this regatta. He currently leads the series with 10 points and is 22 points ahead of Slingsby in fourth place.

Burton, who has a reputation as a very good light airs sailor, has won four of the seven races and his worst placing was an eighth recorded in the second race today. His score was one, eight and three.

'I'm pretty happy with that,' said Burton with a huge grin. When told that he was on the cusp of selection for the AST however, he said he wasn't thinking that far ahead. 'With Slingo and Nick (Thompson), you can't get rid of those guys, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. There's still three races tomorrow and the medal race.'

Slingsby, like many of his AST teammates, had a day he would rather forget, starting with a 19th and a 13th before bouncing back to win the final race. He is only seven points from third place and can finish on the podium, but only a miracle will see him on the top step.

Slingsby made no excuses, saying he was having trouble getting the boat to move in the light airs. 'As soon as I can sit on the rail (in about five knots of wind) I'm OK but until then I'm slow. Something to work on,' he said.

After a very long break, the RS:X sailors were finally sent out shortly after 6pm in an attempt to get two more races completed. They completed one race this morning.

The lack of wind meant all races have been 'pumpers' and triple Olympian Jessica Crisp made the most of her many years experience to win the first two races of the day. First competing as a 14-year-old when sailboarding was a demonstration event at Los Angeles in 1984, she represented Australia at Sydney, Athens and Beijing. The two bullets moved Crisp into a tie with Hualz Zhu of China. Hualz won the final race with Crisp second, so there is a single point between them with Quiben Chen a distant third.

In the men's event, it is still an all-Asian leaderboard with Aichen Wang of China leading from the Hong Kong pair of Chan King Yin and Andy Leung.

Full results are available click here