Weymouth and Portland International Regatta - Aussies on their toes

by Craig Heydon on 11 Aug 2011 At the Weymouth and Portland International Regatta, the Olympic Test event, strong winds have been wreaking havoc on racing but, a number of Australian crews are excelling in the breeze.

Crews were tested by winds gusting to 30 knots with Australian Laser sailor Tom Slingsby, 49er crew Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen and 470 men’s pair Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page putting themselves in the picture for medals with race wins in Weymouth.

Tom Slingsby is set for a four-way showdown in the Laser medal race on Friday, the three-time World Champion heads into the race second overall.

Slingsby opened the day with a race win before finishing eighth in race two to be just one point behind the overnight leader Andrew Murdoch of New Zealand, with Dutch sailor Rutger van Schaardenburg one point behind Slingsby and 2008 Olympic Games champion Paul Goodison six points adrift in fourth.

'I had a pretty good day with a win and an eighth,' said Slingsby. 'The first race all went to plan but in race two I was in about fourth and told myself that I’ve just got to keep it upright and get through here and the next thing I capsized it. 'Sailing is one of those sports where if you take your foot off the pedal for a second things go wrong, after the capsize I dropped to 12th or 14th but was able to catch back up a bit by the end. Slingsby is looking forward to the challenge of the double-point ten boat medal race, any one of the top four able to take home the Gold medal.

'Who knows who’s going to win it,' he said. 'I haven’t had a medal race scenario like this before and I’ve been doing them for quite a while, I think it’s quite fitting for the Olympic test event. 'More than anything it’ll be a really good experience, there won’t be the Olympic Games pressure that there will be next year on this race but it’s still good to go through the steps of a close medal race and we’ll see who comes out on top,' he said.

Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen have retaken the lead in the 49er class after only two of their scheduled three races were completed due to the breeze getting up towards thirty knots. Outteridge and Jensen opened the day in style with a race win before finishing race two fifth, opening up a two point lead over the Spanish crew of Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez who finished with an eighth and a fourth.

'It was pretty fresh today with race three being cancelled due to the strong winds but we managed two good results,' said Outteridge. 'We had a swim in the second race but managed to climb back to fifth which made it a good day for us after a race one bullet.' Jensen said that the pair had a lot of work to do after capsizing at the top mark in the second race.

'We found ourselves in the high teens, early 20s and just tried to stay composed and not try to do anything special and minimise the mistakes,' he said. 'We figured it was fresh enough that other people would fall down and make mistakes and we worked our way back up.'

The 49er fleet returns to the water on Thursday for a minimum of three races before the final medal race on Saturday. 'There’s plenty more racing to come and plenty more breeze due as well so it’s going to be a good finish to the regatta,' said Outteridge.

470 men’s sailors Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page are second overall heading into the final medal race following a day of highs and lows in the blustery conditions. Belcher and Page won the opening race of the day, showing good speed to round the top mark in fifth and following some up and down positional changes had the lead by the following lap, with the pair not looking back from then on to take the win.

In race two the reigning World Champions were in ninth position coming down the final reach, just twenty metres from the finish when the New Zealand boat ahead of them spun and half capsized.

Belcher and Page were just a boat length behind and traveling at around fifteen knots, giving them nowhere to go. Belcher bore away but the boats collided, with Page also making contact with the Kiwi’s boat, doing a full 360 degree spin and landing in the back of the boat, breaking the Australian’s tiller and leaving them without steering. The pair then capsized and was unable to finish the race, after returning to shore they sought redress from the race committee and given a ninth place finish, leaving them fifteen points off the leading French crew of Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos with just the medal race remaining.

'We were flying in to the finish when the Kiwis went over right in front of us leaving us with nowhere to go to avoid hitting them,' said Page. 'The hit was pretty big and I slammed into their boat and landed back in ours, doing a bit of damage to myself and our boat.

'I took a hit to the arm but after getting it checked out it will be fine for the medal race on Friday, just plenty of swelling,' he said. 'There’s no way I was going to miss the medal race, I’d be out there tomorrow with a cast on my arm if I had to.'

Australia’s Women’s Match Racers Olivia Price, Nina Curtis and Lucinda Whitty have finished fifth overall after the strong winds kept them onshore. The trio had taken a one-nil lead in the first to three wins sail-off against the Dutch crew lead by Mandy Mulder on Monday evening, with Thursday’s cancellation securing them their fifth position.

Krystal Weir heads into Friday’s Laser Radial medal race in eighth overall, just ten points off fourth in a tight group of boats. Weir had a 21st and an 11th in the day’s two races on Weymouth Bay and will be keen to push her way back up the leader board in the final race.

In the Finn fleet Brendan Casey is 16th overall following a 14th and a 17th, with two final fleet races scheduled for Thursday.

470 women’s sailors Tessa Parkinson and Belinda Stowell ended their regatta 24th overall following a pair of 23rd place finishes.

The Star fleet was unable to complete a race due to the strong breeze, with the crews making their way to the race course only to be send back to shore. Australians Paul McKenzie and Philip Toth are 15th overall in the highly competitive fleet.

The 49er, Star and Finn classes return to the water on Thursday, along with the RS:X fleets for their final medal race, with Jessica Crisp set to race in the women’s final.

Australian Sailing Team website
Weymouth and Portland International Regatta website