470 Junior Worlds title - down to the wire

by Diana Bogaards (amended by Sail-World) on 29 Jul 2007
Today was very easy. The good guys continued to go forward and the mediocre were left in the spray.

It was a great day of sailing. Wind direction Due east (90 deg). Water temp 24 deg. The first race was held in just over 10 knots, the second in 10 to 14, and the third in 16 plus. It was a day where the sailors who were fitter and better prepared excelled. This is a big regatta, not only do these Juniors have 6 qualifying races, but they also have an added two finals races. This means 6 Finals races and then a Medal race. All this without a rest day.

Race one saw a split of 80% of the fleet go right, 20 to the left. The Russians streaked forward once again, and lead from the first upwind. They were so fast, nobody had a trick on them. GRE 7 also had legs and kept a sizable advantage over the rest of the fleet. Both the Sime FANTELA and IGOR MARENIC (CRO 83) and Levine EYAL and Amir YAM (ISR 9) were locked into the teens, finding it difficult to advance. Which only helped other teams make valuable points. The wind was on the rise even at these early stages. Tomasz JANUSEWSKI and Maricin MICKI (POL 52) continued their late form with a sixth place. Hanna SAARI and Mikaela WULFF (FIN 142) fought hard and had a 15th place. Good work. The early races really showed the fitness level of many of the teams. Some teams just had more staying power due to their training before the event.

Race two saw two general recalls, and then the black flag. it was a very conservative start line, with nobody over at the gun. CRO 83 really worked the first up wind, tacking 5 maybe times to stay above and in front of the Artem BASALKIN and Maxim SHEREMETY (RUS11) and the ISR 9 team. The Croatians were on top of their game, they knew that another bad result would result in s loss of the lead. So they sailed a basic race, although they sailed it fast. The main push came from the RUS11. A very defensive race was in order, stay ahead and cover. Pol 50 regained some early momentum getting into third place. ISR 9 however was in second place and had to do a penalty, we saw was a spinnaker being pulled down, a turn done and five boats went past. ISR 9 finished in seventh place. POL 52 continued with a fourth.

Race Three saw the black flag again, the race committee doing all they could to stop the over anxious. Unfortunately the Aussies got it into their head that they had enough room, as they did yesterday and just went for it. Risky as they were in 8th position overall. They were BFD, so were disqualified from race 12. Would they make it through? As the wind increased the Women found it harder to keep in the top group. But their fight is now up to the last race tomorrow. Anthi ECONOMOUand Olga TSIGARDI (GRE887) will be hard to beat tomorrow having a 33 pointy lead on Tara PACHECO and Berta BETAZANOS (ESP 696). Only one race to complete the series.

Yet again, this race ended open to only two boats, CRO 83 and ISR 9. They had the jump on the rest of the fleet. Nobody was going to catch them - until Bertand NUN and Nicolas ANDRIEU (FRA 26) had better ideas, they pushed and finally crossed the ISR 9 down the last run holding them off until the finish to gain second.

CRO 83 extended their lead by two points (24points) to be ahead of RUS11 (38points), with third place going to GRE7 on 44 points.

Tomorrow at 10:00 hours there will be a meeting for all in the Medals round. This race will contribute to the overall and will score double points. The game is not over yet, tomorrow will tell who will be the 470 Junior World Champion.

At the time of this post, up to date reults had not been posted on the event website. Results at: http://www.470juniorworlds.org/