ISAF Sailing World Cup Mallorca- NZL wins Gold, Denmark earns Silver

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World team on 6 Apr 2014 At the behest of the 49er Class Association, three short sprint races were sailed rather than a single medal race for the 49ers racing on the Bay of Palma today.

2013 World Champions and London Silver medallists Pete Burling and Blair Tuke(NZL) finished with 15 points across the three races and preserved their lead in the regatta to take World Cup Gold medal.

Denmark's Beijing 49er Gold medallist Jonas Warrer and his London 2012 Bronze medal crew Peter Lang sailed a solid set of three races in today's 49er medal race, to win the Silver medal.

British Pairing Dylan Fletcher and Allan Sign were third overall.

Pete Burling was smiling today 'A good mix of conditions this week. In the middle there we were just trying to keep it in one piece in pretty testing conditions on the gear and its good fun racing though. We haven’t really done too much racing in the breeze recently and it was good fun.

'We seem to be going really quick in a a pretty good range of conditions. We are really happy with how we are going.

Jonas Warrer, now a class veteran at 34 commented: 'An enjoyable week, the highlight for us was the heavy day. It is always scary in these almost survival conditions in the 49er. You never really know what is going to happen. We had one capsize and we just didn’t know what had happened before we were lying in the water. It just went so fast.

'We are quite comfortable in these conditions and we are just aggressive and just pushing all the time and that in the end it pays off. We did a lot of training as well in these conditions so quite comfortable in them.

'Of course it reminded me a little bit about the 2008 Olympics. Almost everyone almost capsized.

'But across the week we held it together in the light conditions too and that is what we need to focus on.

'We are looking forward to Hyeres now, with the London 2012 Gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen joining in the battles.


.