Dan Slater reports on Day 2 of the 2015 Laser Worlds in Kingston

by Dan Slater, The Water Shed on 4 Jul 2015 Dan Slater, of The Water Shed, is coaching at the 2015 Laser Worlds. He files this report from Day 2 of the regatta:

Day 2 Laser Worlds - Quite a Contrast.

Today the breeze was building up well and by start time there was 10-11 knots from the SW which is the good direction here for sailing.

All the sailors had done their tune ups and checking of what side of the course they wanted to go . They had all got back to the start area by 1130 ready to start on time. The course had a bend in the breeze that most sailors and coaches would have measured and witnessed where the direction was 10-15 degrees further left on the left hand side of the course.

The Race committee decided to postpone which became for two hours while the breeze become a little more stable in their opinion. The breeze then became within 10 degrees from left to right but had also dropped down to 7-8 knots for race one when they got underway.

As a Coach with sailors in the third starting group it can be very hard to keep focus for that long period and also maintain a good handle on what’s changing on the course area. I think in the two hour waiting period we did five full beats up the course checking and re checking .

The boys drank nearly four litres each and although didn’t eat that much during the period they tried to keep the energy levels up.

Finally racing started underway - I didn’t pay to much attention to the Yellow and Blue feet as my sailors where in the Red fleet. However in the Yellow fleet racing was really close with most of the top sailors all scoring a good race and a discard today.

In the Blue Fleet It was dominated by Guatamala’s Juan Ignacio Maegli who had a first and fourth today as well as Australia's Tom Burton who scored a two second places.

In the Red Fleet Philipp Buhl from Germany punched out from the start and lead from start to finish and was chased by the two Dutch Sailors Nicholas Hiener and Rutger Van Schraadenberg who crossed the line second and third in Race 1.

The second race for the Red fleet saw Rutger from the Netherlands and Lee Parkhill from Canada lead the charge for the first lap before a drop in pressure to four knots and a substantial right hand shift which Lee went on to win the race and Kecper Zieminski from Poland getting a very well sailed second. Unfortunately for me Rutger dropped to 10th after a couple of split decision mistakes but he did climb up the score card overall today.

Overall 14 Nations make up the top 15 places overall showing the world wide depth of the Laser class and how some of the smaller sailing nations can compete on the world stage.

Till tomorrow and we will see what unfolds and the day brings.