Class 40 World Championship 2009 - Day 3

by Event media on 21 Aug 2009
Class 40 World Championship 2009 Day 3 – Round the Island Race.

Day 3 and the sunshine and light breezes had moved over to allow for a proper British south westerly cold front, complete with cloud and rain to propel the Class 40 competitors around the Isle of Wight.

The race started at 0900hrs at Universal Marina buoy with 15 – 18 knots of breeze from the the southwest, giving them a beat to the needles as the fleet headed off on the traditional anti-clockwise course around the island. Tanguy de Lamotte’s Initiative Saveurs – Novedia Group and Arnaud Aubry’s Courrier de L’Odet were forced to retire early due to damage sustained in a collision during the start.

By midday the fleet was already around the needles and screaming off downwind towards St Catherines Point, propelled by squally gusts of up to 30knots. Not only are the points weighted for the race, competitors were also in the running to win a bean bag specifically designed for offshore racing and donated by Amanda Russell at Pigbags.

Felipe Cubillos onboard Desafio Cabo de Hornos was the first to round the Bridge Buoy and set off down the back of the island towards St. Catherines point, closely followed by Tony Lawson’s Concise. Lawson’s team managed to take the lead downwind and maintain it until the finish.

Ned Collier-Wakefield, part of the Concise team commented 'We had a good start winning the pin and headed for the Island shore. We rounded Bridge Buoy in second place, just after the Chileans and managed to get though them downwind. We had really good boat speed and seemed to pull away from the fleet.'

The win has put them at the top of the leader board going in to the last day of racing. Simon Clarke’s team posted a good result, which would have seen them in first place overall, but an incident during the race saw them penalized three places dropping them to third overall.

With three races starting at 1000hrs tomorrow, the Championship title is still up for grabs with less than five points separating the top five.

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