49er and 49erFX World Championships – Fifth for Dobson and Ainsworth

by RYA on 22 Nov 2015 2015 49er and 49erFX World Championships – Charlotte Dobson proclaimed the push for Rio 2016 is ‘full steam ahead’ after claiming a fifth place finish with Sophie Ainsworth at the 49erFX World Championships, which drew to a close in San Isidro, Argentina, on Saturday (21 November).

The British pairing improved on their seventh at the 2014 World Championships in Santander and although Dobson admits they were disappointed not have pushed into the podium spots in the pivotal final medal race, she says the duo has made great strides in recent months, giving them confidence as the Rio Games draw closer.

“We’re a little bit disappointed not to have been able to move up into the medals, but to be honest I think fifth place pretty much reflects where we feel we are right now in the fleet. And actually we’re pretty happy with that,” said Helenburgh’s Dobson of their World Championship experience.

“It’s been really, really good to have our next coach Mark [Asquith] come in in the last month. We’ve worked really well as a team and actually that was a real important factor in pulling through the week and in making a good finals series.

“It will be really exciting to see what we can do as a team from here on in.”

Dobson and Ainsworth finished just four points adrift of the podium spots after a testing week of racing amid difficult conditions. A tactical mistake on the first downwind leg of the medal race hampered their chances of silverware

“The downwind stuff has been an area of weakness [for us] but now we are getting much, much better at it and it’s that bit about learning how to back yourself in the split second when you think you need to gybe and not just follow the fleet,” Dobson admitted.

John Pink and Stuart Bithell overcame a testing start to their 49er World Championships regatta, as well as illness as suffered by a number of the international fleet during the course of the week, to finish sixth overall and match their 2014 World Championship result.

“We struggled a little bit earlier in the week, we came down with a bit of illness we think due to the water, but since then it got a lot better and we’ve been pushing our way back up the leaderboard,” Pink explained.

“Today there was a good bit of breeze – the best breeze we’ve had all week. We were consistent, we could have done with a slightly better first race and it would have pushed us up even higher.

“We’re pretty happy with how we sailed toward the end of the week, we just could have done with being stronger at the start of the week.”

“We feel like we’ve got ourselves in a position where we can push for medals at every event – all we’ve got to do is make that happen, go and race as well as we can and keep refining the small little details. Our base set up is very good now,” the Fareham sailor concluded.

Fellow Podium squad sailors Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign also made the medal race cut, ending their regatta in tenth place overall.

“We were expecting to be a little bit higher up the order and we were ideally looking to medal so I think we need to have a little reflect and look at where we need to make the next gains looking to Clearwater,” said Fletcher, looking ahead to the 2016 World Championships which will be held in just three months’ time in Florida.

“It’s been an interesting venue,” the 27-year-old continued. “I think we’ve all been struggling to read the water, which is different – it’s really, really muddy brown and quite shallow. It’s made for some challenging conditions.

“Today was the first day we had more than ten knots – the rest of the time it’s just been sub ten knots, super shifty, patchy and hard to predict. It’s kept everyone on their toes.”

James Peters and Fynn Sterritt finished their regatta in 33rd overall, while in the 49erFX event, Kate Macgregor and Steph Orton were 34th overall.