Sail-World New Zealand- 14 December 2011
by . on 13 Dec 2011
Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand newsletter for 14 December 2011
Action continues in the ISAF World Championships in Perth, with the second week of racing underway – New Zealand is represented in the Mens Single-hander (Laser), Mens HP Skiff (49er), Mens Windsurfer (RS:X) and Womens Two-hander (470). And the Womens Match Racing continues from the first week.
After a reasonable start some of the fancied competitors fell out of bed on the second day, and we will have a full report online on Wednesday on www.sail-world.com
But the short shot is that Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are in 4th overall in the 49er; Tom Ashley is 4th in the RS:X; Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie 10th in the Womens 470; and Andrew Murdoch is the best placed NZer in the Mens Laser at 10th overall.
Great news of the day is that the New Zealand Womens Match Racing crew of Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt have qualified New Zealand for the 2012 Olympics. This is a great result for the Koru Match crew – to qualify in the second round of qualifying as sixth best placed nation (excluding the host GBR) out of the eight to qualify from the Perth Worlds.
The old maxim of 'it’s not how hard you fall but how quickly you get back up' certainly applies to the Koru Match team after they were not selected to take the NZ qualified place at the 2011 Olympic Test Event – but bounced back at the World Championships just four months later.
Ashore the controversy over the double disqualification of triple Gold Medallist Ben Ainslie continues, with the British team in full damage control mode.
We have some more images of the incident in this edition and a fuller report including the full International Jury decision which is at variance with some of the claims being made in media releases.
This is a serious matter, from the perspective of the signal this sort of behaviour sends to others in the sport, particularly young sailors, and the penalty must be substantial. Further action must be taken by the International Sailing Federation.
For sure there is no excuse for media, and particularly TV, to be so close to competitors, but there is a proper way to resolve that issue – which is not by jumping aboard a media boat on the way to the beach and remonstrating with the driver.
In the Volvo Ocean Race, the second leg has got underway in marked contract to the first, with the fleet being plagued by light winds. We feature the latest reports in this edition and will publish a Volvo Ocean Race newsletter in the next day with all the start and stopover coverage.
We've also got the latest report from the maxi trimaran, Banque Populaire skippered by Loick Peyron, who is well ahead of record pace to set a new round the world sailing record.
Don’t miss the review of the 2011 year from Emirates Team NZ’s perspective by Grant Dalton taken from www.etnzblog.com We’ve added some images and a couple of video interviews to illustrate the gains made and the spread of events undertaken by the world’s most successful professional sailing team. Theirs is an example others could do well to emulate, instead of hauling them off to the America’s Cup Jury Room, whenever Emirates Team NZ have a new angle on the AC sailing game.
Many thanks to those who have contributed to this edition, particularly those using our online submission and image loading facility which can be accessed by http://www.sail-world.com/admin/add_story.cfm?rid=6!clicking_here
Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
nzeditor@sail-world.com
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