RS Feva Europeans - Gold and Silver fleets decided

by Bill Tucker on 30 Jul 2009 Day 3 of the Allen RS Feva Europeans.

The last race of the qualifying series was held this morning - Wednesday.

Light airs (probably F2-3max) predominated from the North again much to the disappointmentof the bulk of the fleet who were hoping for a repeat of the Peler from yesterday - F5-6! Shucks. So Gold and Silver flights were decided with the one protest not affecting the flights. The sailors will now carry their position from the qualifying series over as a non-discardable score into the final series which consists of a further eight races.

So Baddeley/Taylor continued to set the pace in the light with another win closely followed by Bowerman/Darling with another second. The other race winner from this morning's flights were Alice Kent/Lucy Childs from Oakham.

So who were the other movers and shakers? Conor Lyden/Peter Stokes shook of the dissappointment of a DSQ in yesterday's final race by getting a tenth and consolidating their position in the Top Ten. Frederica Zamboni/Delia Da Mosto also consolidated their ninth overall with a sixth.

Two to keep an eye on as the series progresses (given their race by race progression) are Ruth/Tess Allan: 14,16,7,8,4,4 and Rob/Emma Loveridge: 12,12,17,11,2,3.

Leading the Dutch charge are the female duo of Maxime Jonker and Dewi Cowert who are showing great form including three top ten results including a third as they qualified in 16th.

The most gutted sailors at this point are always those who just missed the cut and have an 'if only' story. This week the most filleted sailors are Amanda Hallgren and Kevin Olsson from the Segelsallskapet Westgotarne in Sweden. In their local newspaper before coming out here they were interviewed as saying they hoped for the Gold fleet and possibly Top 20 if it was windy here. As I said - gutted. The Swedish beachcamp only asked for more wind for the Swedish sailors and Kevin and Amanda in SWE 3092 wanted to say Hi to all the kids in the SSWL Pirate Sailing School back at home - hope you can all one day sail in the wonderful Lake Garda!

All afloat now for the racing that counts for the choccies. Gentle Ora at present F2-3 from the South. Race course has been set in the middle of the lake with a first start scheduled for 1.05pm local time. Got to go afloat so see you later.

Later...

As reported earlier this turned out to be one busy day. The morning Peler failed to develop to full strength largely due to a storm at midnight over Riva/Torbole at the Northern end of the lake. That accounted for the lack of expected breeze in the morning and as a knock on effect dimmed the full strength of the Ora in the afternoon. Having said that the two races in the afternoon had respectively a F2 for the first Gold/Silver fleet races and some F2-3 with gusts of planing speed for the second. Sadly the wind had a split in it causing the initially favoured side to suffer shortly after the start. With having to relay 350 yards of anchor line for every buoy every time the race committee wanted to straighten the course out to the wind direction this took some time between races 1 and 2.

I was privilidged to be able to watch the racing in my capacity as class bigwig together with one of the very experienced Jury members here. I thought we had watched racing in good spirit with very few incidents. Was I surprised then when ten protests were lodged. All manner of fun ensued causing the temporary loss of computer time and quick reporting. So sorry folks.

Race 1 was delayed for a short period to allow the ora to settle a bit. Those with clear air off the line just streaked away. Keeping your head out of the boat was also proving to be extremely important. With a split in the wind the sailors needed to spot the developing issue with differing pressure zones and directions. Those with their heads out of the boat picked the messages up fairly quickly and if necessary were then able to bail out of their first strategy and adopt a second. The same thing applied in the second race as the general 1st race strategy wasn't quite on the money in the second. To give you an idea of how big a difference this made - Alice Kent/Lucy Childs won the first race by some distance. In the second they weren't saiing any slower but collared 30th place! Usually these two are consistency itself and therein lies the tale of the day. Maxime Jonker/Dewi Couvert (NED) had a good 5th followed by 22nd.

The results after the protest hearings haven't been released yet as there is still one protest hearing that carried over from yesterday evening until this morning. Until discards kick in there are two boats whose overall position will look worse than they really are. The first is Jack Hawkins/Chris Thomas who were in fourth overall having added a 4, 14 to their carried forward score of 8. However they ran into two protests in the one race and didn't survive one of them so they lost their 14th. The other to lose out was Davide/Mattia Chincoli who were in provisional 13th but lost a ninth place in the first race.

So currently the positions would seem to be (me guessing at the effect of the DSQ's until formal results are published):

1. Ollie Cooper/Callum Ellis (GBR) 7pts
2. Owen Bowerman/Charlie Darling (GBR) 11
3. Lyden Conor/Peter Stokes (IRL) 17
4. Alessio Bellico/ (ITA) 21
5. Robert Baddeley/James Taylor (GBR) 25
6. Frederica Zamboni/ (ITA) 37
7. Alice Kent/Lucy Childs (GBR) 38
8. Maxime Jonker/Dewi Couvert (NED) 43
9. Nicolo Scarpa/ (ITA) 43
10.Ruth/Tess Allan (GBR) 45

Racing for day 4 is scheduled to start at 2pm local time. Forecast is for more of paradise but whether paradise is windy or not hasn't yet been established.

Big news in about next years worlds is that it looks like Allen Performance Sailboat Hardware is going to continue to support the major international events programme. So it looks like the worlds 2010 in Carnac, France are going to get off to a flying start. Carnac has an enviable reputation for magnificent sailing events - the 18 foot skiffs have just had their first ever world championships that weren't held in Australia there. To have that kind of pulling power makes the mouth salivate at the mere prospect of our own event next summer. Whahey!!

*Full Results not available at time of posting.

Event website: click here