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Sail-World.com : GP14 UK Nationals Day 3
GP14 UK Nats - Morning drizzle cleared away before the fourth and fifth Races of the National Championship at Abersoch. The wind had moved round during the night and appeared to have settled in the west, but a 60 degree shift quarter of an hour before the scheduled start caused a 20 minute delay while the marks were reset once the wind had settled again, almost in the north (330 degrees). During the race, dark clouds continued to pass through bringing with them strong shifts that inevitably caught some of the fleet in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The first race of the day, Race 4 of the series, started in quite a strong breeze of 13-14 knots, but this dropped off before the boats had reached the windward mark to 6-7 knots and became very shifty and hard to read. This produced very taxing racing. In the end, it was Ian Dobson and Andy Tunnicliffe who made the best of the conditions. Matt Mee & Chris Robinson were a casualty of one of the strong wind shifts and finished second.
Race 5 was postponed because the wind went back into the west, though it eventually settled again at 330 degrees. The Race Officers had boats stationed ready to drop the marks as soon as the wind had settled, and several sailors were taken unawares and caught out down tide when the race suddenly started.
Like yesterday, the tide was more significant in the second race, flowing across the course from east to west and those who played it well made substantial gains. Bill Kenyon and Ben Ditchburn were in the lead at the first mark and continued to lead the fleet for the whole of the first lap, but then Simon Potts and Luke Shaw got past them and stayed ahead for the whole race. Paul Owen and Adam Parry had a great race and managed to get past the Seniors on the last beat to take second place.
As the winds were lighter still, the course was shortened to give a race time of 75-80 minutes and to avoid the risk of having to time out the slower boats. The Finish Line was very tricky because of the tide and there were many place changes throughout the fleet in the last 50 yards.
In the Silver Fleet, Ian Sinclair and Alan Jones in 13930 are still ahead of the young pair from South Staffs, Will Croxford and Lucy Evans in 12212. Andy Wadsworth & Helen Allen from BTYC, Welsh Harp are just ahead of Dave Burrows and Kate Billinge from Winsford Flash.
Since the programme is on time with five races completed, tomorrow, Wednesday August 4, will be a Lay Day, scheduled racing resuming on Thursday.
GP14 UK website click here
by Liz Hall
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http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=72995
8:38 PM Wed 4 Aug 2010 GMT
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