AUSSIES NEED GRUNT IN THE BREEZE

by Ian Grant on 22 Sep 2000 Australia's high performance Tornado catamaran crew of Darren Bundock and John Forbes need a big favour from 'Old Hughie' the sailors fictitious weather prophet to salvage their Olympic prospects.

Bundock and Forbes considered to be the fastest Tornado sailors in the World when the wind gusts over the deck above 12 knots have basically been forced to sail hard to hold second place in the ultra light winds which have prevailed on the Olympic courses over the past week.

Sure they have had extensive time on the water over the past year to have the time to refine the light wind sailing technique but this has not measured up to the skill and speed demonstrated by the best light weather sailors in the World Roman Hagara and Hans-Peter Steinacher of Austria.

The Austrian's have been the complete masters over the inner Sydney Harbour and Tasman Sea offshore courses recording a very impressive 3-1-2-1-1-4 compared with the Australian's 1-3-4-4-4-7.

However the Austrian's who have an extensive experience of racing at the International level are unlikely to take a real dive on the pointscore if the breeze finally decides to gust above the normal September wind average of 8 knots.

They have sailed smart to build the 8 point lead over the Australians who are 6 points clear of the French crew Pierre Pennec and Yann Guichard and there is no weakness in their ability to suggest that stronger winds will damage their hopes of fulfilling the ambition to win Gold in the Tornado Class.

PROGRESSIVE POINTS: (6 Races, 1 discard). AUT 8pts 1, AUS 16pts 2, FRA 22pts 3, GBR 23pts 4, NZL 25pts 5, USA 29pts 6, PUR 30pts 7, GER 30pts 8, ARG 32pts 9, ESP 43pts 10.