Bundock and Ashby extend at Tornado Worlds

by Sail-World/Darren Bundock on 10 Dec 2006 A spectator fleet of more than 100 boats assembled today for the second last day of the 2006 Tornado Worlds in San Isidro in Buenos Aires, Argentina. There are a total of 48 boats, from 20 nations competing in this event.

The day started with a light offshore gradient breeze that slowly died away to the building sea breeze. Winners for the day were the Australian's Darren Bundock and Glen Ashby and the Argentineans Santiago Lange and Carlos Espinola both scoring a 1 and 2.

In the first race Roman Hagara had a bad start in the first race after doing a little match racing with Bundock/Ashby, Hagara broke free of the Australians cover to move down the line, unfortunately the bottom end of the line was crowded and Hagara got caught up.

This allowed the Australian pair to reach down the line again and roll the Austrian pair seconds after the start.

Lange/Espinola lead Bundock/Ashby for two laps but Bundock/Ashby passing Lange/Espinola on the final upwind.
Hagara recovered well to get back to 11th by the finish.

The second race of the day saw a complete roll reversal with Lange/Espinola taking revenge and passing Bundock/Ashby on the final upwind.

The Australians now lead the Austrians by 13 points going into the final day. Argentinean heroes Lange/Espinola trail the Austrians by only 6 points. The Greek team of Paschaladis/Trigonis have had a very consistent second stage of the regatta to crawl back to fifth position.

With the Australian pairing currently with a drop of a sixth place, they are looking comfortable at this stage as the Austrians having a 33rd and the Argentines a 23rd.

Bundock reported, 'today was the make or break day. We went for it on the starting line and probably had the two best starts of the day. We were able to get clear off the line and could sail our own race. We have still two races to go but now life is a little easier after today’s results.'

Ashby commented, 'it was disappointing not to win both races as we were so close, but in hind-sight it was probably the best thing for the sport with the Argentines winning the last race in front of so many spectator boats.

'The crowds went ballistic. I have never seen a sailing spectator fleet like this before.'

Tomorrow is the final day with two races scheduled starting at 1 pm and a final start time of 3 pm.

Pl	B#	Sail #	Crew	Tot	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	7	AUS8	Darren Bundock & Glenn Ashby	17	(6)	2	4	2	1	5	1	2
2	16	AUT3	Roman Hagara & Hans Peter Steinacher	30	1	8	1	3	2	(33)	11	4
3	43	ARG1	Santiago Lange & Carlos Espinola	36	7	(23)	8	4	12	2	2	1
4	2	GER7	Johannes Polgar & Florian Spalteholz	53	15	1	(28)	10	4	4	4	15
5	21	GRE7	Lordanis Paschaladis & Constantinos Trigonis	59	(31)	3	13	7	9	11	5	11
6	3	FRA7	Yann Guichard & Alexandre Guyader	74	9	(31)	14	18\RDG	6	16	6	5
7	15	FRA5	Billy Besson & Arnaud Jarlegan	77	10	(21)	15	1	18	3	21	9
8	1	FRA1	Xavier Revil & Christophe Espagnon	83	2	5	22	24	11	7	12	(26)
9	27	FRA11	François Morvan & Matthieu Vandame	85	8	29	9	15	10	6	8	(31)
10	4	ESP1	Fernando Echavarri & Anton Paz	87	11	13	12	22	7	19	(26)	3