Dan Slater reports on Day 4 of the 2015 Laser Worlds in Kingston

by Dan Slater, The Water Shed on 6 Jul 2015 Dan Slater, of The Water Shed, is coaching at the 2015 Laser Worlds. He files this report from Day 4 of the regatta:

Day 4 Laser Worlds - Quite a Contrast.

Today the breeze was 4-8 knots and shifting up to 20 degrees but not so often making the beats to windward often with just one large shift.

For the sailors some of them had some very good luck and showed some skill while others had it all go against them when leading the fleet making the day frustrating.

I was watching the blue and yellow fleet most of the time today and we saw the lead change in both fleets on almost every leg. In race 1 of the blue fleet a 25 degree wind shift on the second beat had the fleet rotate and the sailors in the 20s and 30s came into the top 5-8 and the leaders dropped back to 10-15th

Tomorrow the sailors will be split to Gold Silver and Bronze Fleet this will for sure have some more big scores and the real champ will come out in the next few days.

Philipp Buhl from Germany leads overall now after salvaging nearly 40pts from his first mark roundings today. Overall in second place is Nick Thompson from the UK who sailed a very solid first two races with a fourth and first before having a discard race of a 24th.

He then counted on his scorecard a sixth place instead. Third overall is Juan Ignacio Maegli for Guatamala who has been the form sailor to date but today found the going a bit tough scoring 3rd, 15th and 30th .

Some of the big movers today where Youssef Akrout from Turkey who won the day scoring a fifth and two sevenths as well a Cy Thompson from the US Virgan Islands and Christopher Barnard from the USA all climbing up to 20 places overall today.

Robert Scheidt the nine times World Champion from Brazil is struggling to find form so far lying 41st overall as well as Current World Champion Nicholas Heiner in 30th overall it shows that when at this level it really is the last 1-2% that is the difference.