Sail Brisbane day 3 - Crazy weather chaos

by Craig Heydon on 1 Dec 2010
Abandoned races, too much wind, too little wind and torrential rain were all served up to the competitors on day three of Sail Brisbane.

On the Laser course, competitors were half way through the first race when a 50 degree wind shift caused the principal race officer to hoist the 'abandon' flag. The rain squall that accompanied the shift made life unpleasant and a following line of pressure saw wind speeds climb to above 25 knots.

On the RS:X course, this had competitors working on their freestyle skills. 'We were just going crazy out there,' said a grinning Luke Baillie. When racing was finally re-started in 15-18 knots, Baillie powered to the front and held on to beat his more fancied overseas competition.

Unfortunately, by the time the second race got underway the wind had died again, although the rain persisted.
'In the second race I saw this huge line of pressure sitting out to the left. I thought I'd just bang it left and lift up to the mark. But it didn't come in and everyone went through underneath me,' Baillie said.

The effect of the changing wind speeds was clearly seen on the tracking devices. In the first race the RS:X and Moth sailors were reaching speeds of up to 20 knots, but by the second race the wind had dropped to below six knots and the boats and boards crawled towards the marks at less than four knots.

Chang Hao from Taipei leads the RS:X with nine points after a second and a first today, from Seb Wanghansen of Norway and Marco Baglioni of Italy. Luke Baillie's first and fifth leaves him in joint fourth position with fellow Australian Jimmy Levy. Both have 21 points after one drop.

Ultimately, Luke's elusive line of pressure did arrive, but by then organisers had abandoned the last race of the day for all but the Laser Standard fleet.

In this class yesterday's big mover, James Burman, continued to progress up the leaderboard. He placed fifth in the first race but then found his groove and won the next two. His fellow Australian Sailing Development Squad member, Ryan Palk, still leads comfortably on 11 points after placing first, fourth and second today, but Burman has moved into equal second with Klade Hauschildt 19 points.

The Kennedy siblings continue to lead in the Laser Radial and Laser 4.7 classes. Mitchell Kennedy had a poor day by his standards with a fourth, fifth and eighth but still leads both the Open and Youth divisions. Madison enjoyed a first and a fourth placing today, to leave her at the top of the 4.7 class on 11 points from Nicholas Connor on 14.

In the Bic Techno Samuel Treharne's first and second placings today leave him on top of the leaderboard, while in the Moths Benjamin Rankine suffered his first loss, but dropped the resulting second placing to hold a perfect score. Perfect scores were also the order of the day for 420 sailors Angus Galloway and Alex Gough who also drop their only non-bullet performance.

In the Optimist Dinghy class, Kyle O'Connell has been on the podium in every race and leads his nearest rival, Kye Evans, by two points. After fifth placings in the first two races, Kurt Hansen has been the most consistent sailor in the Sabots, leading the class by two points from clubmate Henry Makin and Tom Seganto.

Only one race was completed in the 29er. It was won by Jessica Hansen and Liam Hilton, but second place was sufficient to keep Josh Franklin and Lewis Brake in the series lead with a score of eight points.

Full results in all divisions are available on the event website www.sailbrisbane.com.au, where you can also view videos of today's racing and connect to the trackers to watch re-plays of today's races.

Racing starts early at 10am tomorrow, with live trackers again being placed on the RS:X, 29er, 420, Optimist and Sabot classes. To date, more than 4600 people have accessed the tracking facility and 460 have participated in the on-line blog.