Another fantastic day's racing in Laser Radial Worlds

by Linda Parrish on 8 Aug 2009
Another fantastic day of sailing in Karatsu, Japan for the Laser Radial World Men and Youth Championship

After a shakey start with low cloud, poor visibility and little wind, racing started half an hour late when Karatsu yet again turned on great sailing conditions. Two races were sailed for each fleet with the first race sailed in light winds of 7 to 10 knots and the second in 12 to 15 knots. The sun was shining and the seas were slight. With the threat of a typhoon south of Kyushu that is moving slowly north, everyone was very pleased to have such a good day. This typhoon is being closely monitored.

Aleksander Arian of Poland had another consistent day to lead the youth boys by 17 points from Chris Barnard of USA. Keerati Bualong from Thailand had a second win today to move into third place. Nikolaos Chrisos from Greece moved into fourth place with a second and third today. Josh Porebski from New Zealand moved into seventh place with an impressive win in the second race of the yellow fleet. Toma Visic of Croatia won the blue fleet in the first race today and may move back up into contention if a second drop occurs. He has some impressive results (2, 2, 1, 1, 3) but with a dnf and an OCS he is at present in 22nd position. The fleet will now be split into gold and silver tonight so racing will be very competitive tomorrow. Snow Nevin of USA has taken over the lead in the under 17 group.

In the youth girls Alexandra South scored two bullets today to move into third place. However first and second place are still held by Mathilde de Karangat from France and Ashley Stoddart of Australia, who both sailed consistently with a second and third each. With only three points separating these two there should be some good racing tomorrow. Ashley continues to lead the under 17 group.

Marcin Rudawski from Poland consolidated his big lead in the men’s competition with only one place outside the top three in eight races. Ben Koppelaar of Netherlands is nineteen points behind, but has a thirteen point buffer over Romzi Muhamad Mohd of Malaysia who lies in third place. Japanese sailor, Hisaki Nagai, had his second win of the regatta to move into sixth place overall.

A very special ceremony was held at the end of racing today to honour a local laser sailor, Masakazu Hayashi, who was to have been a key member of the race management team for these world championships. Unfortunately he passed away suddenly last summer. A special memorial scattering of the ashes took place in “Castle Bay” with a guard of honour of the race management boats and some Japanese laser sailors in their boats.

Two races are scheduled for tomorrow and we are all hoping the typhoon will not head our way.