ISAF Sailing World Cup 2015 Hyeres - Laser fleet tactical move misfire

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World Team on 26 Apr 2015 In the 2006 Laser Worlds in Jeju Korea, going into the final race current Australian coach Michael Blackburn was second overall behind fellow Australian, a young Tom Slingsby. Blackburn had the luxury of a fourth place discard, whilst Slingsby’s discard at that stage was a poorer 20th.

Blackburn engaged the regatta leader in a vigorous duel in the race prestart and as he intended the two rivals as a result had a poor start.

At the first mark Slingsby rounded 28th with Blackburn 56th, but Slingsby recovered to finish 17th, a score he had to keep while Blackburn 36th was his drop. Blackburn, the 2000 Olympic bronze medallist won the World Championship.

Fast forward to the ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyeres.

Going into the last Laser Men’s pre-medal race. Second on the leader board Croatian Tonci Stipanovic had a drop of eight, while the series leader Tom Burton, world ranked number one and dual Hyeres World Cup winner had a 33rd from race 2.

So it was always likely that the Croatian was going to attack his young rival and Blackburn and Burton would have been expecting an aggressive attempt.

And it came on the first downwind leg, it had the desired result, Burton crossed the line on 30th place but after a protest from Burton, there was an entirely different result.

Quoting from the Protest findings

‘Half the way of the first run of Race 8, AUS was clear ahead of CRO and both were on starboard tack, CRO was sailing close astern of AUS. CRO established a leeward overlap at a distance of around one meter from AUS.

‘CRO luffed and AUS responded to the luff, CRO and AUS sailed parallel courses for one and a half minutes, both boats lost a significant number of places.

The International Jury found ‘by sailing above her proper course CRO infringed RRS17. By hindering AUS, CRO gained a significant advantage in the series thus infringing RRS2.

‘AUS is entitled to redress because the action of CRO infringed rule 2, causing AUS to lose 10 places.’

Decision: CRO208709 DNE race 8. AUS199012 is to be scored 21 points (RDG) in Race 8.

So now going into the Medal race Burton has retained a slender two point lead from Nick Thompson GBR, with Rutger van Schaardenburg NED. Stipanovic with his 41 points carried in his score is back in seventh place and has no podium chance. An interesting race ahead.

In the process, some 15 months before Rio, there are lessons learned by all concerned.