Zhik SB3 World Championship day 3 - The difficulty increases + Video

by Katie Ashworth on 19 May 2011 Zhik SB3 World Championships day three, Torquay UK.

A smoother day for the fleets today as conditions lightened and they split onto their Gold and Silver courses.

For the Gold Fleet today, the competition got a lot harder. Reviewing the results after a further three races, it was a day of snakes and ladders for many.

Overnight leader Peter Saxton (GBR) didn’t enjoy the best of days. After racking up a 18, 20 and 43 Saxton drops to thirteenth overall. This is a disappointing set of results after such a strong start to his Championship. 2009 SB3 World Champion, Craig Burlton, had a down, up, down day adding a 21, 2 and 29 to his score card. Burlton drops three places to eight overall; he won’t be happy with that.

Jez Entwistle entering the Gold Fleet in thirteenth position this morning. Leading at the first windward mark in the first race, 'Perky III' finished fourth in the first race of the day. Building on their first race performance, Entwistle lead again at the first windward mark of race two. This time he managed to protect his lead and extend on the downwind leg and went on to win the race.

'We’ve not sailed together as a crew before, but everything is coming together nicely, Ali [Hall] is a great tactician and doing a great job of picking our lanes out of the starts. We are all really enjoying ourselves.'

Another boat that has shot up the leader board today is 'Team Russia', Oleg Zherebtsov’s SB3 helmed by Rodion Luka. 'We’ve had a very good day today and we are very happy on the boat. We have a good attitude after one black flag and one disqualification, we have everything to gain. I have a good feeling for the shifts now and in this boat, there is time to think about what you will do, so it is very tactical racing!' explained Rodion Luka (UKR) after racing this evening.

At the end of day three, Team Russia have climbed fourteen places and are now eleventh overall. I’d call that a good day at the office.

After leading Fleet A on day one of the Zhik SB3 World Championships, Robert Greenhalgh (GBR) slid to sixth place yesterday. Today, the crew onboard Red were back in race winning form. Adding a 1, 3, 1 to their results, Robert now leads the fleet by nine points. 'It’s been a really hard week so far, but it came together again today.'

For the next two days of sailing Robert’s aim is, 'To make the bad bits better and the good bits better too.' As we recognised at the beginning of this championship, consistency is king in the SB3 fleet and it looks like Greenhalgh has this under control.

Full Results at Zhik SB3 Worlds Website