NZL Sailing Team - Murdoch holds 2nd after Day 2, Brit makes big move

by Jodie Bakewell-White, Yachting NZ on 25 Nov 2015 Racing for the 2015 Finn Gold Cup continued off Takapuna as the large 75 boat fleet took to the water for Day 2 of the six day regatta.

Conditions were light and just one race was possible in what were described as generally soft and tricky conditions.

NZL Sailing Team’s Andrew Murdoch placed 17th in today’s race and holds second overall at the end of day two unable to keep pace with Great Britain’s Giles Scott who took a race win to his tally sending a message to the fleet on his intentions to defend his world title.

Today’s win sees the British Sailing Team sailor open a 16 point gap on Murdoch from New Zealand, with Ed Wright (GBR) just two points further adrift.

Andrew Murdoch says, “It was a little bit of an expensive day today. I had a good start down the pin end and just couldn’t tack over soon enough. The tide played a big factor in to over on the right hand side and the guys around that side got ahead, so I was deep at the top mark. I was able to pull in probably 20 odd boats during the race.

“You know 17th is not good, but in the conditions we had it’s probably not too bad either. It’s good to still be in second, but it’s still early days. We’ve only had three races.”

“Giles [Scott] did well to win that race. He’s got a jump on us, he’s the man to beat of course – defending champion. It would be good to close in on him and to be in contention for the title at the end of it.”

Josh Junior placed 14th in today’s race which sees him improve in the overall standings and break into the top ten.

Junior describes the day; “I think it was good, it was good to get another top 15 place on the board and that keeps moving you towards the top of the fleet so I’ll just keep doing my best.”

The young NZL Sailing Team campaigner describes the conditions and what impact that had on his day; “Similar to yesterday – light, seven to eight knots, and some big clouds kept coming off the shore and shutting the breeze down so it was really tricky to know where to position your boat relative to the clouds, and I got it right, and then I got it wrong - so that left me with an average result.”

“I will be trying to tick off a few more top ten places.”

The 75 boat fleet is sailing as one fleet with two races planned each day, each around 75 to 90 minutes long. Racing resumes tomorrow starting midday and wraps up on Sunday 29th November.

Top three…

1st GBR Giles Scott (5, 3, 1) 9 points
2nd NZL Andrew Murdoch (1, 7, 17) 25 points
3rd GBR Edward Wright (4, 13, 10) 27 points

See full results by clicking here