Australians hold lead in two divisions at Hyeres

by Event media/Sail-World on 28 Apr 2006 Australian Laser sailor Tom Slingsby continues to hold the lead at the SOR regatta. His second drop from today’s ninth race was a sixth, while second placed Croatian Mate Arapov has a 12 drop.

In the Lasers Brendan Casey had his worst day and his last three results have been an OCS, a DNF and a 29th, so its not shaping as the Queenslanders best regatta.

In the Laser Radial Class Sandringham sailor Krystal Weir had a good win, then in the second race of the day a 22nd and is now 10th overall, while Sydney RSYC sailor Mel Dennison suffered with a 40th and a 24th and is now 16th overall.

No racing in the Tornado class today, Darren Bundock and Glen Ashby hold the lead.No racing today either for the 470 Mens or Women’s Classes.

Corey Plant is 65th in RS: X Mens. Not a good day for Pix but we are hoping for a booming three days with Gilles Martin-Raget on the water

Full results at http://sof.ffvoile.net/

The story of the day from the Event report.

Racing was postponed in the morning because of lack of breeze. Around 2PM, a light wind from the south west reached the racing areas. The racing committees were ready to act quickly and sent all the classes out but the Tornados in an ultimate attempt to get some races in today.

The Gold groups in the RS:X Men, 49ers, Laser radial and Lasers; the RS:X women, the 49er silver group and the 2.4 were the only classes to race. The 470 Men Gold, were racing when the wind dropped to 1 knot forcing the Race committee to abandon, cancelling by the same occasion the 470 women, the Men Silver group and the Finns. Same fate for the Yngling, and the Tornados who didn’t leave the shore

The 10 best sailors in each class are now selected for the medal races tomorrow. Today’s poor conditions didn’t allow for a second chance to make it to the final contest and yesterday results will count to chose the finalists.

The bigger surprise in the 470 Men is the absence of Argentinean Sydney Silver medallists, Javier Conte and Juan de la Fuente in 16th place. Ruslana Taran and Olena Paholchyk (double Olympic medallists) have reformed their winning team after a 4 years campaign in the Yngling class.

They are still in preparation mode and a 14th place while insufficient to make the Medal race is marking a good debut for their come back. Probably the bigger disappointment comes from the current World Champions, Dutch team of Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout placed in 18th place penalised by a starboard incident early in the week and a Black flag.

The ten teams selected in the Tornados are including most of the class favourites. The newly formed team of Mistral champions Aaron McIntosh and Bruce Kendall (20th) are still to prove their abilities on this new class.

Last year finalist teams, the Americans: Barkow/Howe/Capozzi, the British skipper Sarah Ayton (with different crew) and Russian Skudina/Krutskikh/Sokolova will be experiencing another final format this year with 10 boats. The usual class favourites will contest the medal race.

Ed Wright (GBR) is dominating the Finn fleet and has a good lead to go into the Medal race tomorrow. He was third after the Finals experimented last year in Hyères.

After sailing two races today in 4/5 knots wind and discarding a second race, the top 10 Laser radial sailors didn’t see many changes except for the Australians. A victory in the day first race brings Kristal Weir in the very much sought after 10th position, ironically held by 1994 Laser radial World Champion, Australian Melanie Dennison who missed her day scoring a 40th and 24th.

Paige Railey continued today on her impressive strike of good results to hold a comfortable lead going into the 100 % European medal races. Only four points are separating the leaders. With two bullets today, Spanish Martinez/Fernandez are two points from Morrison/Rhodes (GBR) and 4 from the Sibello brothers.

Not much change either in the 49er. However, tomorrow medal race promises big excitement.

The results changed in the Laser on their last day in the Gold fleet. While Maciej Grabowski (POL), Javier Hernandez (ESP) or Felix Pruvot (FRA) dropped from the top ten today, bigger improver is surely German Tobias Schadewaldt who leaves his earlier 23rd position to grab the last coveted spot in 10th place, after scoring a second and a sixth.

A short race was sailed in the RS:X classes. Casper Bouman, is one of the best performer in Hyères with a 13 points lead over Polish Przemyslaw Miarczynski. Nicolas Huguet, first crossed the line is placing third overall.

In the women, the race was also won by a French. Olympic champion Faustine Merret, after a year off, had a slow come back to the competition. Despite finishing well out of the top ten, a victory in the last race shows that she is back. The Spanish Marina Alabau and Blanca Manchon are leading with a close lead.

Thierry Schmitter won another race today, his seventh for the regatta. The 2.4 will sail a normal fleet race tomorrow to complete the series.

Top 10 results:

Laser:
1 AUS 184675 SLINGSBY Tom 20
2 CRO 179403 ARAPOV Mate 28
3 CAN 186629 LEIGH Michael 34
4 ARG 185399 ROMERO Diego 36
5 SLO 182672 ZBOGAR Vasilij 37
6 AUT 183177 GERITZER Andreas 41
7 NZL 184682 MURDOCH Andrew 43
8 SWE 185800 WIGFORSS Johan 52
9 FRA 177529 BERNAZ Jean baptiste 54
10 FRA 181580 LE BRETON Thomas 54

Radial:
1 USA 183275 RAILEY Paige 19
2 FRA 183248 DE TURCKHEIM Sophie 23
3 USA 184544 TUNNICLIFFE Anna 40
4 CHN 182008 XU Lijia 41
5 NZL 177775 ALEH Jo 41
6 BEL 185785 VAN ACKER Evi 57
7 GBR 181920 BALDWIN Laura 69
8 POL 185617 SZOTYNSKA Katarzyna 74
9 CAN 182711 ROSS Lisa 75
10 AUS 185828 WEIR Krystal 76

Finn:
1 GBR 111 WRIGHT Edward 13
2 CRO 25 MISURA Marin 32
3 FRA 73 FLORENT Guillaume 35
4 SLO 5 VINCEC Gasper 36
5 DEN 2 HOEGH-CHRISTENSEN Jonas 36
6 NZL 1 SLATER Dan 42
7 GRE 7 PAPATHANASIOU Emilios 50
8 CRO 524 KLJAKOVIC GASPIC Ivan 53
9 DEN 7 HOLM Soren 58
10 SWE 11 BIRGMARK Daniel 65

2.4mR
1 NED 12 SCHMITTER Thierry 8
2 GBR 75 LUCAS Helena 15
3 NOR 102 ERIKSTAD Bjornar 20
4 GBR 60 PASCOE Megan 28
5 NED 11 HOLSTEIJN Ruud 28
6 FRA 9 FULGONI Gerard 42
7 FRA 13 TOURNEUX Herve 44
8 FRA 16 VENNIN Jean-marie 53
9 FRA 1 MORAINES Magali 63
10 FRA 8 MIRC Jean claude 71

RSX Men:
1 NED 7 BOUMAN Casper 16
2 POL 126 MIARCZYNSKI Przemyslaw 30
3 GBR 21 DEMPSEY Nick 31
4 POL 82 MYSZKA Piotr 34
5 FRA 6 BONTEMPS Julien 35
6 FRA 8 HUGUET Nicolas 42
7 NZL 181 ASHLEY Tom 49
8 BRA 1 SANTOS Ricardo 50
9 UKR 19 OBEREMKO Maksym 57
10 FRA 112 LAUNAY Samuel 64

RSX Women:
1 ESP 5 ALABAU Marina 38
2 ESP 1 MANCHON Blanca 43
3 POL 8 KLEPACKA Zofia 46
4 GRE 1 FREY Andonia 58
5 FRA 4 PICON Charline 71
6 UKR 9 MASLIVETS Olga 73
7 POL 200 GALECKA Anna 73
8 GRE 3 SKARLATOU Angeliki 76
9 GBR 94 SHAW Bryony 83
10 FRA 81 PERRIN Pauline 93

470 Men:
1 ISR 7 KLIGER Gideon GAL Udi 16
2 ITA 2 ZANDONA' Gabrio TRANI Andrea 21
3 POR 22 MARINHO Alvaro NUNES Miguel 27
4 FRA 11 BONNAUD Benjamin BONNAUD Romain 32
5 AUS 361 BELCHER Mathew BEHRENS Nick 46
6 GRE 165 KAMBOURIDIS Panagiotis OROLOGAS Gerasimos 49
7 GER 4931 ZELLMER Lukas SEELIG Heiko 52
8 GBR 816 ASHER Nic WILLIS Elliott 53
9 JPN 4181 SEKI Kazuto YANAGAWA Syouichi 54
10 GRE 136 MANTIS Panagiotis POLYHRONIDIS Theodoros 55

470 Women:
1 ISR 13 GILBOA Adi BOUSKILA Vered 41
2 JPN 4152 YOSHISAKO Yuka OHKUMA Noriko 43
3 FRA 9 LECOINTRE Camille LEMAITRE Gwendolyn 53
4 FRA 4 PETITJEAN Ingrid DOUROUX Nadege 54
5 GBR 831 WILSON Pippa CRAIG Sheena 54
6 CZE 1 SMIDOVA Lenka KRATZIG Elizabeth 55
7 GBR 819 BASSADONE Christina CLARK Saskia 56
8 ITA 23 CONTI Giulia MICOL Giovanna 61
9 DEN 143 KOCH Henriette SOMMER Lene 63
10 JPN 4151 KONDO Ai KAMATA Naoko 64

49er:
1 ESP 99 MARTINEZ DE LIZARDUY Iker FERNANDEZ Xabier 33
2 GBR 5 MORRISON Stevie RHODES B