Sail-World.com : Optimist Worlds Report , Day 3 – NZ top qualifier
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Optimist Worlds Report , Day 3 – NZ top qualifier |
The boats were held ashore for light winds and the first race got underway at 1:50pm.
Race 6 Flight 1 – Logan and Andrew
At the start of the race we had 5 knots with a slight sea. There was a right favoured track and Andrew and Logan both came in from the left. Logan was 19th at the top and Andrew was 49th. At the finish Logan was 18th and Andrew was 46th. Greece 1st, Australia 2nd, Peru 3rd and Japan 4th. The light conditions definitely appeared to be mixing the results up a bit.
Race 6 Flight 2 – Sam
There was a bit more breeze from the right and Sam also came in from the left. At the top he was 42. By the end of the race he had worked his way up to 25th. Winner was a different German from usual with Thailand 2nd and Argentina 3rd.
Race 6 Flight 3 – Erica and Naomi
The breeze was a max of 5-8 knots. Greece was first around the top, Chile 2nd, Thailand 3rd. Again the left hand side was poor where Erica came around 25th and Naomi was around 70. At the finish Erica was 23rd and Naomi 51st. Chile passed the Greek to win, Singapore 3rd and the Thai slipped to 6th.
Race 7 Flight 1 – Logan
8-10 knots - still shifty. Right hand continues to pay at the top of the course.
At the top mark we had Logan again coming from the left at 25th waiting for the left hand sea breeze that doesn’t seem to be there. Nicky Barnes from US Virgin Is was first at the top and continued on to win the race with France 2nd and Germany 3rd and Turkey 4th. Logan read it well coming from the left and finished 7th. The top German finished in the 70’s..
Race 7 Flight 2 – Andrew and Erica
8-10 knots holding steady but still shifty. Same story again. The fleet likes the left as do ours and the top of the course pays right. With a bit more pressure. Andrew was 42nd at the top Erica 47. Erica hit the mark did a 360. Similar to Logan’s flight the left paid this time. Andrew finished 16th and Erica 24tt with Japan in 1st and 5th.Thailand 2nd Poland 3rd and Mexico 4th.
Race 7 Flight 3 – Naomi and Sam
At the wing mark Sam was 36th and Naomi 49th. By the end of the race the breeze had dropped to 2-3 knots with the boats finishing at 5:30 in the
afternoon. Belgium won with Croatia 2nd and South Africa 3rd. Naomi finished 50th and Sam 60th. Now they are lining up for their 3rd race of the day at 5:50pm.
Race 8 Flight 1 – Erica and Logan Flight 2 – Naomi Flight 3 – Sam and Andrew last finish at 7:30pm
The supporters’ charter boat had to return for an evening charter so we were unable to watch and provide detail on Race 8.
The results of Race 8 were:
Logan
Erica
Naomi
Sam
Andrew
The fleet racing regatta has now reached the halfway point. Tomorrow is the World Teams Racing Championship which you qualify for by being in the top 16 countries after Race 5 counting your best 4 sailors results and adding up all their individual Race scores without any drops.
The New Zealand team has qualified first.
The rankings are:
NZL-1 Puerto Rico-2 US Virgin Islands-3 Germany-4 Italy-5 France-6 Uruguay-7 Bermuda-8 Netherlands-9 Spain-10 Singapore-11
Switzerland-12 Sweden-13 Norway-14 Japan-15 Turkey-16
Interestingly this year countries like Peru and Argentina have failed to qualify. There are 55 countries at this regatta.
Regatta website is http://www.optiworld2008.com/
by Peter Dawson
8:50 PM Sat 19 Jul 2008 GMT
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