Fireball Pre-Worlds - Glorious day 2 in Pattaya

by Cormac Bradley on 26 Mar 2014 Today’s (day two) participants in the Fireball Pre-Worlds being hosted by the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya, Thailand had a glorious day on the water with sunshine and 10 knots of breeze from the SW. The tide made life challenging but kept the racing tight through the fleet.

Today the left hand side paid from the start of both races. The vastly experienced Heather McFarlane and Chris Payne led the fleet around the first weather mark of the day followed closely by Nathan Batchelor and Sam Pascoe who had the bunch behind them.

On the second lap, Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey moved through to second place but then had to go backwards through the fleet as a second pumping infringement was recorded by the on-the-water jury. They did recover to third, just ahead of Ben Schulz and Doug Sheppard. The Swiss combination of Christina Haerdi-Landerer and Cedric Landerer closed out the top five.

In the second race, over-standing the first weather mark was the subtle tactic but this time the combination of Batchelor and Pascoe took the fleet round the mark, followed by McFarlane and Payne. Ben Schulz will have been frustrated at having to give both of them room at the mark to round third. Birrell and Brearey moved into third by going high around the top mark and another change at the gybe mark saw Tom Gordon and Jack Fletcher (AUS 15071) take fourth place.

Birrell and Brearey ducked out early and headed for shore, leaving Batchelor and Pascoe to have a comfortable win, followed home by McFarlane and Payne, Gordon and Fletcher, Schulz and Sheppard with the Canadians Jospe and Egli closing out the top five.

			R1	R2	R3	R4	Pts
1	Heather McFalane and Chris Payne	AUS15048	2	1	1	2	6.0
2	Ben Schulz and Dough Sheppard	AUS15061	6	3	465	4	17.0
3	Veronica and Ben Falat	GBR15092	4	2	11	6	23.0
4	Nathan Batchelor and Sam Pascoe	GBR15087	1	DNS	2	1	26.0
5	Joe Hospe and Tom Egli	CAN15024	10	5	8	5	28.0

Comments:

Pete Crossley (AUS 14814) - End of day two, didn’t get better results but moved up to seventh overall so very happy. Few changes to the boat and some experimenting on the water will hold us in good stead for the Worlds! Still loving paradise! (11, 6, 10, 9).

Chris Payne (AUS 15048) -Still peaking – another first and second! Bit of help from the jury :-)