RS-X World Championships - Light winds on Day 1

by Sail Canada on 3 Mar 2013 The first day of the 2013 RS:X World Championships, being held in Buzios in Brazil, kicked off with light winds and delays. The race committee squeezed in two of three scheduled races. Canada is represented by two-time Olympian Zac Plavsic in the men’s fleet, and in the women’s fleet, Laurence Bonneau-Charland from Quebec.

Leading up to the event, Zac Plavsic points out that they trained in 15-30 knot North Easterlies every day for three weeks straight. 'I felt like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day. Our confidence in planing conditions was high, although we had a growing concern that we had not done any anaerobic pumping or light wind pumping.' Murphy's Law would have it that the World Championships were to be different conditions. Light winds and offshore South Easterlies.

Plavsic’s objectives going into the first day of racing were to come out aggressive in order to minimize carried points. Aware of the light conditions and racing at a weight of 81kg as opposed to his 75kg race weight, Plavsic knew this was going to be a difficult task.

Race one started well as Zac had a solid first beat rounding in the top 10. Downwind's were a bit of a struggle as it was marginal planing and his added weight definitely made a difference in his planing efforts. Despite this, he sailed smart tactically and threw his power into the rig. Plavsic put his all into his opening race saying, 'I managed to red line long enough towards the end of the race that I threw up all over my board. It's been a while since I have done that but good to know I can still find my upper limits.' Zac finished 15th in the first race.

In race two, Plavsic managed to have another great start and worked diligently on the upwind rounding the weather mark third. 'It was a knife fight out at the front of the fleet bouncing between third and 10th until the last down wind.' Plavsic reports. Missing the gust as he came around the last mark, Zac needed to maintain his patience and wait for the wind to come to him. Zac finished on the tail end of the lead group in 13th.

Forecasted to have two days of windier conditions, Plavsic is hoping to move up the leaderboard.

Results:
Men’s fleet after two races
1. Chuankun Shi, CHN, 4 points
2. Shahar Zubari, ISR, 4 p
3. Pierre Le Coq, FRA, 6 p
4. Dorian Van Rijsselberge, NED, 6 p
5. Bing Ye, CHN, 7 p
Women’s fleet after two races
1. Charline Picon, FRA, 2 points
2. Eugenie Ricard, FRA, 5 p
3. Bryony Shaw, GBR, 8 p
4. Qiaoshan Weng, CHN, 13 p
5. Flavia Tartaglini, ITA, 14 p