Laser Radials Youth World Champions 2012– Day 5 blown away

by www.Sail-World.com on 3 Jul 2012 The 2012 Laser Radial Youth World Championship are being sailed out of Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron on Moreton Bay Brisbane Queensland, with sailors from 19 countries competing in the Under 17 and Under 19 Boys and Girls championships.

Today, Tuesday, was Day 5 and early in the afternoon Principal Race Officer Wilson delivered sad news.

Kevin said’ 'Further north on the Great Barrier Reef its blowing 23 knots up at Hamilton Island but further down the Queensland coast we’ve not been so lucky.

‘The sad story of today is we had a race scheduled for 11 o’clock and before 10 o’clock it was at southsoutheast at about three or four knots.

‘It then switched to the southwest at 1015 and built nicely to six-seven knots so we got a race away on time for the Girls, right on the 11 o’clock schedule.

‘They had gone about 0.2 of a nautical mile and the breeze dropped down to 1.7 so just a little way up the course they were spread from about 0.7 nautical miles between the port and starboard boats and they were drifting with the current.

‘So we abandoned that race. Then the breeze just kept going down and we got nothing above three and a half knots for the rest of the day, even though its swung gradually to the northeast. At 1430 we pulled the pin on the day's racing.

‘It has been clear skies, very clear skies. The young sailors spent the day sitting on their boats; the competitors tied up to their coach boats and the race committee boats sitting there sunning themselves, enjoying the weather without going sailing.

‘It’s one of the softest weeks for a while. There is nothing encouraging the big high pressure system to move forward and with the cold inland we are not going to get any more breezes.

‘The forecast for tomorrow is probably a little bit more pressure than today but talking to some of the real locals here they are saying that we probably won’t get any different than we had today.

‘We have scheduled a race for 10 in the morning to maximise the early light sou’wester that we get, but if we can’t get that in then we are done.'

For results so far go to www.rqys.com.au