Optimist World Championships Day 8, Dominican Republic

by John Adair on 26 Jul 2012
Yesterday’s lay day was cancelled and instead a full day of fleet racing was planned, at the World Optimist Championships.

With two flights of race 5 to be completed first, the race committee intended to use the day to catch up with races 6 and 7 as well. Despite sufficient persistent wind (6-8 knots) and decent sailing conditions, the race committee were plagued with problems with moving marks and a drifting committee boat. Long story short, the day was a shambles and after seven hours on the water, the sailors returned ashore with only two flights of race 5 having been completed. Considerable blame was aimed squarely at inadequate race management and consequently an IODA overseer was put in place to assist the race committee on day eight.

The first flight (Yellow) of race 6 started at midday in around 8 knots of wind which swung from south-east to south and back throughout the day. New Zealand’s Isaac McHardie (NZL4374) had a reasonable start in the middle of the line but was quickly enveloped by the fleet on either side. He finished a solid 18th place and the race was won by Singapore’s Yukie Yokohama who had struggled to get clear from the bunch on the committee boat at the start.

The second flight (blue) had similar shifty conditions starting under a black flag with a huge bias towards the committee end. Tim Adair (NZL4429) and William McKenzie (NZL4413) started nearer the centre of the line where there was a sag and Tim managed the get clear early. Flyweight Erik Nevhagen of Sweden won the race just ahead of another lightweight, Samuel Neo of Singapore Tim Adair finished in seventh - his best finish so far - with William McKenzie finishing 29th.

More details in the daily video highlights: http://youtu.be/kPTk9sYwdjQ

All in all, this was a much more well run day of sailing than what has preceded despite there still being a drifting gate problem. With the final day of racing tomorrow, the leaderboard shows Singapore in the top four places - Yukie Yokohama first, Samuel Neo second, Jessica Goh third, Jiayi Loh fourth, Bart Lambriex of Netherlands in fifth.

Tim Adair (NZL4429) is the top Kiwi sailor in 32nd place, William McKenzie (NZL4413) in 38th place, Isaac McHardie (NZL4374) in 65th place, Leonard Takahashi-Fry (NZL4499) in 85th place, and Cameron Moss (NZL4280) in 109th place.

Full results are available here - web