IOM European Championship - Wind brings changes to the leaderboard

by Dean Miculinic on 23 Nov 2012 The third day of the IOM European Championship started powerfully with a bright sun and the wind averaging sixteen knots. No need to delay then for the race committee that started races at 9am sharp and by 10am a full race of five heats was completed. Graham Elliot from UK was the winner leaving Croatia’s Matic in second, with the first place changing hands many times between them.

The second sequence started right after since the forecast was not very promising for later during the day. Now it was championship’s current leader that had to defend his position and so he did. After two strategic downwind legs, UK’s Gibson managed to overtake his rivals’ one after the other and score the bullet leaving his main rival, Carre from France, second.

And then the expected happened, the wind dropped to four knots and was now really shifty. So the race committee decided to wait and gave the chance to the sailors to relax and exchange opinions about their, much more technical than they seem, boats. After an hour’s delay the wind was in sailable conditions again but very light in strength.

Nonetheless one more race was sailed with Croatia’s Jelacic scoring the bullet. He had the lead from early on, but it was many times during the race that UK’s Roberts threaten him and passed ahead.

So after nine races sailed and two of them discarded, Gibson is still in the lead extending his gap he had from yesterday from Carre that is now only two points in front of the other Briton, Elliott.

But, this championship is only half way through and the top spot is still open for everyone to claim in the days that follow.