Darren Choy and Niki Blassar share honours at the Byte CII Worlds

by Byte Class on 11 Apr 2010 Darren Choy of Singapore won what turned out to be the final race of the Championship when the final two scheduled races were abruptly cancelled as the wind suddenly built to 30 knots in a matter of minutes during the starting sequence for the third race and was soon followed by crashing seas.

This was his second consecutive World's win and it was done with incredible consistency in a wide range of conditions. No one else was close as he finished 36 points clear of the second place finisher, Ian Barrows of the US Virgin Islands who was coming off a win in the NA and Caribbean Qualifier in Cayman three weeks prior. Third place went to Kaarle Tapper of Finland who had previously qualified his Country with a second place finish in the European Championships in Imperia, Italy.

In the women's event, the racing went down to the wire. Lara Vadlau AUT lead by two points going into the last day but the early series leader, Niki Blassar FIN had two seconds to Lara's two fifths and ended up winning the Championship by four points. Both competitors had qualified their country in the European's, Lara in second and Niki in fourth. Third place in this Championship went to Netherland's sailor Daphne van der Vaart, also a qualifier in the Europeans in third place.

This Championship was also a final Open Qualifier for the World Youth Olympics in Singapore. Six male places and six female places were open for countries that had hitherto not qualified in their Continental Qualifier. These places were won as follows:

Male: Ukraine, Slovenia, Portugal, Turkey, France, Switzerland
Female: Denmark, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine

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