SB20 World Championship – Day 3 – Export Roo on a roll on The Solent

by Peter Campbell on 31 Aug 2017 With two wins and a second, Tasmania’s Export Roo has moved further ahead on the overall rankings after day three of the SB20 World Championship on The Solent in England.

Michael Cooper has steered his boat to a net five points after Royal Yacht Squadron race officers finally managed to run three races in improved breezes.

Export Roo’s scorecard in the Yellow qualifying fleet reads 1-3-1-2-1, five points after discarding the third place.

Cooper is a member of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and the Derwent Sailing Squadron which will jointly conduct the SB20 worlds next January.

Five Australian (four Tasmanian) crews have qualified for the Gold fleet at Cowes to decide the 2017 championships over the final two days: Export Roo, Black, Brazen, Porco Rosso and Difficult Woman.

Second overall on 10 points are the British yacht Xcellent (John Pollard) and the French entrant Give Me Five (Robin Follin).
Xcellent’s scorecard to date is 1-6-9-2-1 while Give Me Five has finished 2-5-2-1-6.

Nick Rogers (Black) notched up another second place in his qualifying division after a 10thin in race three and a DNS in race four. Black is 10th overall, still within sight of a higher final placing.

Brazen (Jervis Tilly) from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron is 15th (today’s placings 9-8-27), Difficult Woman (Rob Gough) is 19th (13-18-12), Hypertronics (Stephen Catchpool) is 52nd (22-22-25) and Smigger 56th (19-31-35).

RYS officials got the sailors out of bed early on day three to make the most of the early morning wind and they enjoyed the windiest day so far. There were three good races in a shifty northerly breeze that decreased during the day, keeping crews busy with shifting winds and tide.

There are potentially seven more races, with one discard, to decide the world championships among the 40 Gold fleet boats.