Report on Finals of UK Open 29er Nationals
by Ross Whitburn on 20 Jul 2006
The NZ crew on a reach at the UK Open 29er Nationals beiung held at Hayling Island UK. Ross Whitburn
Ross Whitburn reports from the UK Open 29er nationals at Hayling Island:
'Just a quick report from Hayling Island for the GBR 29er Nationals - the NZ crew of Chelsea Whitburn and Matt Bancroft were placed 43rd in the preliminaries before the cut out of 85 boats. Today they are placed 5th overall but some black flags have not been taken out yet.
'It was very light conditions for the first two days and best placing was a 10th, black flaged in one race. The top 25 boats went into the gold fleet and 65 in the silver. Today we raced in 15 knots or so. The placings today were 20th, 3rd, 18th and 3rd (approx).
'There was about 15 boats in the last race a lot of boats were black flagged so we are hoping for a better place. They recovered from 36th place to finish 20th in the first race today and had some really good races in full wiring conditions.
'We have just heard that the 29er has been voted by Brazil to be the youth boat so it will be the youth boat for the next three years. The feeling over here is that people will jump out of the 420 and sail the 29er and get some experience in sailing skiffs.
'Great turn out and record fleet and the worlds have over 125 entries for the worlds next week at Weymouth. It has been a very good shake down for our guys and thanks go to Ravensbourne Youth Yachting Trust in Dunedin for their support and coaching and a special thanks to Fiona Balch who has encouraged girls into sailing.
'There will be a demonstration of the 29er XX class at Weymouth - twin trapese mast head genneker which has been nominated for the double handed women's class for the 2012 Olympics in England.
'Apparently there is a heat wave here - record temperatures today 35 degrees C. Hottest temp for 95 years.'
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