Nacra 17 Worlds - Big breeze hits on second day of Qualifying
by Nacra 17 Class on 7 Jul 2015
Day 2 action in Aarhus, Denmark - 2015 Nacra 17 World Championship Mogens Hansen
2015 Nacra 17 World Championship – In stark contrast to yesterday’s calm and sunny weather which kept the sailors ashore for the entire day, today’s weather threatened the sailors with another day on land with a wind speed of up to 30 knots and wind gusts even little higher.
The wind calmed down a little after noon and the sailors were sent out for the first qualification races at this year’s Nacra17 Worlds. The capricious Danish weather offered abundances of the wind and challenging situations for both the yellow and the blue Nacra17 fleets. Both fleets sailed two races.
The first fleet in today’s qualification race – the yellow fleet – was challenged by capsizes and collisions due to the strong wind gusts, however, many of the favourite teams managed to keep the skin on their noses and finish their first two races with flying colours.
The French super duo, Billy Besson and Marie Riou, defending their title, had a brilliant start ending second and first in the first two races. The Danish Rio 2016 favourites and winners of the 2015 Delta Lloyd Regatta, Allan Nørregaard and his crew Anette Viborg, managed to steal fourth place with a sixth and a fourth place.
Third place was conquered by the excellent New Zealand team, Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders which must be considered as quite an accomplishment taken into consideration that the helm Gemma Jones just came back from an injury.
The blue fleet faced more or less the same challenging conditions as the yellow fleet earlier today. The Italian team, Vittorio Bissaro and Silvia Sicouri, who ended up fourth at this year’s World Cup in Hyeres, excelled in today’s qualification races. With a first and a second place in the two races, they conquered the first place in the blue fleet and are now second overall.
The Swiss team, Matias Buhler and Nathalie Brugger had a flying start ending up second and third which earning them third place in total. Nicole van der Velden and Thijs Visser, sailing for Aruba won the second race in the blue fleet, after which they capsized and, unfortunately, broke their mast. With a 12th place, they are starting in the yellow fleet tomorrow which gives them some time to repair their boat and be ready for the next three scheduled qualification races.
Overall results
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