Sailing World Cup Hyeres - Kiwi women emerge bloodied but unbowed

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZL on 28 Apr 2016 The two New Zealand women sailors chasing 2016 Olympic nomination both had their back-alley brawls on the opening day of the Sailing World Cup Hyeres, overnight.

Their mugger was the infamous Mistral, which came through as predicted, catching the Kiwi sailors in the Women's Windsurfer and Women's Singlehander a little unawares.

The 22-28kt breeze tossed up a big sea - but not unmanageable on the Laser Radial course. It was a far cry from the balmy sea breeze 2012 Olympic representative Sara Winther experienced last week on Banderas Bay, Mexico. There she finished 11th overall and inside the top ten nations at the 2016 Laser Radial Worlds.

Ironically one of her coaching mentors, Scott Leith, is leading the Apprentice Masters Worlds fleet at the same venue, this week.

Winther's decision to compete at Hyeres was made at the last minute after she cracked the top ten at the Mexico Worlds.

She went into the racing a little underdone, and with only a short practice race at the regatta venue. After two races she is 17th overall, with placings of 17th and 20th in the 40 boat fleet.

Difficult logistics have meant that only a handful of competitors have made the trip from the Worlds in Mexico. All the top four overall are competing, and only two others from the top 20 have traveled to Hyeres.

The fleet is limited to 40 sailors, with just four of those coming from outside Europe.

Sara Winther explains her day:

'Anyway, was windy so just wanted a solid lane to go full speed, somewhere towards the favoured end. I had a good start a third up from Pin end. We were in a left phase off the line, but couldn’t tack.

'Held for a long time, then we went back into right phase. Held longer. Finally, the breeze knocked again, and I could tack. The guys who tacked off the line had a bit of an advantage. At this stage, I just wanted to hold and wait for the shift to go back right…but it never did. It just went more left.

'I had a chance to go back left, but had decided it was oscillating, but should have used my eyes and just seen solid pressure above me and not ahead of me. So the fleet was quite split by the top mark, and nothing much happened next upwind so was just a bit off a procession with not many opportunities to catch back up.

Ïn the second race, the Pin End was favoured, so I tried to conservatively win the pin if it was going.

'I started three boats in from the Pin, but a left shift hit at 20 seconds after the start, and I struggled to move forward on the boat to leeward. Long story short was that I had a good start but in bad air, but still looked OK.

'After this point, I wanted to hold till I could see the maximum left-hand pressure come to me - which it did. I tacked - looked good, but then a big right came wiping out the gain

'Went back to the left but damage had been done. The second shift there was only left shift the entire upwind. The top marks were a bit skewed making a come-back even harder.

'In summary, just had a wrong approach for the day, it was long oscillating, and I made the mistake of thinking that it would shift evenly on the course, rather than flicking and not coming back. The lesson of the day was 'just don’t think it will shift back evenly'.

'On the positive side my starts were good, speed good, tactics - not right for Hyeres!'

Natalia Kosinska fresh from a two-week training camp in Auckland with the top Chinese and Brazilian windsurfers was expecting a rude shock in Hyeres after the steady light winds of the tail end of Auckland's summer.

The Chinese Olympic coach, Tom Ashley (NZL) has not taken his charges to Hyeres, apparently in the belief that the 40 strong fleets in Hyeres off little real practice for the Olympic fleets which are restricted to about 25 competitors.

While the wind's strength was not what she has been experiencing off Takapuna, Kosinska also struggled in the oscillating breeze and lies in 33rd place overall with a 37, 38 and a big improvement to 17th in the final race of the day.

'I had a bad start to the regatta,' she told Sail-World. 'When we were going out it was a good breeze, but it dropped a bit and went more right for the first two races. It was very puffy, and we raced close to the shore.

'I would say it was 8-20knts on our course. I feel like I sailed through every hole in the wind.

'For Race 3, the wind picked up (20-28knts)and clocked more left and became more stable.'

Kosinska says that she raced only one day in Rio in 2014 when the breeze was unstable - about as much as the sailors experienced today.

'I think the fact that we were so close to the beach with the wind direction in first two races made it so difficult.'

Kosinska is working with now Brazilian coach JP Tobin (NZL) who is coaching Patrica Freitas (BRA) - she finished the day in 13th overall with a 9, 12, 11 scorecard. Of the other New Zealand coaches at Hyeres, Bruce Kendall's Hei Man Chan (HKG) lies in 10th place overall with a 26, 14 and 5 scorecard. Aaron McIntosh (NZL) who is coaching the Dutch 2012 Olympic Gold medalist is also sitting out the Hyeres event, along with Ashley.

Most competitors experienced some very inconsistent placings on the opening day with seven of the top 10 overall scoring places worse than 20th in the 40 strong fleet. Fortunately, a discard place is allowed after three races, providing many with a 'Get out of Jail'card - thus avoiding chaos on the leaderboard.

According to Predictwind the westerly Mistral will blow again for Day 2 before winds switch north and lighten for Day 3 and maybe Day 4 of the five-day regatta.