Nacra 17 Worlds and Finn Europeans - Great day on the water

by Craig Heydon on 27 Jul 2013 At the 2013 Nacra 17 World Championship in The Netherlands Australia’s Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin have booked themselves a spot in the medal race after a great day on the water on Friday. They have also earned their way into the Australian Sailing Team.

Waterhouse and Darmanin went into the penultimate day of racing in 12th position, needing two good races to move themselves up into the top 10 for Saturday’s medal race.

Light winds again made the going tough in The Hague, with a thunderstorm also slowing down proceedings. Nevertheless, the gold fleet managed to complete two races, with Waterhouse and Darmanin finishing eighth and fourth.

The results moved the pair up to sixth overall, just seven points off the bronze medal position ahead of the final race double points medal race for the top 10.

'Today was another exhausting day for all the sailors as we experienced a wide range of conditions,' said Waterhouse. 'However, both races were held in about five to seven knots of breeze with a raging current making things interesting.

'We sailed a very consistent day with an eighth and a fourth which we were happy with,' he said. 'On multiple occasions we had to fight our way through the fleet but we were happy with the way we sailed. The boat felt good and we felt alert and smart.

'Overall it was a great day as we jumped into the top 10 and the medal race,' said Waterhouse.

Fellow gold fleet sailors Pip Pietromonaco and James Wierzbowski finished the day in 22nd position following a 23rd and a sixth.

The silver fleet finally got some racing in, with Josh McKnight and Nina Curtis the leading Australians after the first three finals races in fifth position.

McKnight and Curtis began the day with a 31st, before finishing ninth in race two and 11th in race two.

Euan McNicol and Lucinda Whitty are currently eighth in the silver fleet, with the pair finishing the day with a 16th, a black flag and a fourth.

At the 2013 Finn European Championship in Warnemunde, Germany, just one race was possible on Friday, with the 103 crews spending the morning on shore waiting for the breeze to fill in.

Australia’s Oliver Tweddell and Jake Lilley both had a good day on the water as they continue to work their way up the leaderboard.

Tweddell was fourth across the line, moving himself up to 18th overall.

'Today was another day of sitting onshore before the sea breeze eventually came in,' said Tweddell. 'We had difficulties getting a clean start off, with over 15 boats eventually black flagged.

'Again I managed to get a nice clean start and was able to sail my own race, with the exception of a tanker ship cutting through the fleet and causing some chaos it was a pretty clean race,' he said. 'I’m looking forward to our last race tomorrow and seeing if I can improve on my result.'

Jake Lilley had his best race of the regatta so far on Friday, with the Queenslander finishing sixth to move himself up to 25th overall.

'I had a pretty average start today and then managed to sail fast and clean through the fleet,' said Lilley. 'I was pretty quick downwind and managed to come away with a sixth which was good.'

With one race remaining Lilley is the second placed junior sailor, 17 points behind the current leader.

'There are about 17 points to my good mate Peter from Great Britain so we'll see,' he said. 'It's a tough ask, and we'll see what happens but I'll give it my best and hopefully come away with the win.'

Fellow Australian Joe McMillian is currently in 60th position following a 54th on Friday.

Results Nacra17 - Gold
Scores take into account 1 discard
No	Sailno	Name	Scores	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	FRA 43	Billy Besson, Marie Riou	20,0	(21 )	2	1	1	3	1	1	11
2	GBR 60	Ben Saxton, Hannah Diamond	23,0	5	3	(6 )	3	2	2	3	5
3	SUI 41	Matias Buhler, Nathalie Brugger	43,0	3	5	2	1	(20 )	17	13	2
4	NED 44	Renee Groeneveld, Karel Begemann	44,0	2	(9 )	6	2	9	6	12	7
5	FRA 65	Moana Vaireaux, Manon Audinet	48,0	2	(8 )	1	6	4	3	11	21
6	AUS 36	Jason Waterhouse, Lisa Darmanin	50,0	(9 )	6	7	2	8	15	8	4
7	NED 46	Elke Delnooz, Coen de Koning	51,0	4	1	4	5	(6 )	10	16	10
8	ITA 37	Vittorio Bissaro, Silvia Sicouri	52,0	4	(dsq )	4	7	1	8	2	dsq
9	NZL 102	Gemma Jones, Jason Saunders	56,0	7	3	(20 )	3	4	7	18	14
10	AUT 35	Thomas Zajac, Tanja Frank	57,0	1	(10 )	3	4	10	12	19	8

Finn Europeans

		Ctry	Sail No		Helmsman																Points per Race														Total		RL-
Pos		Bug-Nr			Crew			YB	Club		R 1		R 2	R 3			R 4		R 5		R 6		R 7		R 8		R 9		R 10		R 11		R 12    Pts				Pts
1		SLO	573		Vasilij, Zbogar		75		JK BURJA	2,0		7,0			2,0	8,0		3,0		(13,0)		1,0		1,0											24,0
	017
2		GBR	11		Wright, Edward	77			PARKSTO	(11,0)		3,0			10,0	7,0		4,0		1,0		4,0		2,0								31,0
	069
3		NZL	16		Murdoch, Andrew	82			KCC	13,0		4,0			6,0	4,0		5,0		11,0		(42,0)		5,0								48,0
	041
4		NED	842		Postma, Pieter Jan	82			APPM/DL	(48,0)		2,0			11,0	6,0		1,0		14,0		13,0		3,0								50,0
	047
5		NZL	24		Junior, Josh	89			WBBC	(28,0)		5,0			1,0	2,0		6,0		12,0		14,0		14,0								54,0
	024
6		CRO	524		Kljakovic-Gaspic, Ivan	84			YACHTING	1,0		10,0			5,0	12,0		10,0		8,0		17,0			(BFD)							63,0
	043
7		SWE	33		Salminen, Max	88			GKSS	6,0		(24,0)			7,0	13,0		8,0		2,0		24,0		12,0								72,0
	063
8		FRA	112		Lobert, Jonathan	85			Nantes	31,0		9,0			3,0	5,0		2,0		4,0		19,0			(BFD)							73,0
	100
9		FRA	29		Le Breton, Thomas	82			SR BREST	4,0		14,0			15,0		(BFD)	9,0		22,0		2,0		11,0								77,0
	102
10		TUR	21		Kaynar, Alican	88			Fenerbah	7,0		11,0			16,0	9,0		25,0		10,0		6,0			(BFD)							84,0
	018

Full results from the Nacra 17 Worlds can be found here, and the Finn Europeans here.

For more information on the Australian Sailing Team visit Australia Sailing Team website.