Sovereign Ski Topper Worlds at Dun Laoghaire, Ireland Day 2
by Phil Harland 18 Aug 2011 04:01 AEST
14-19 August 2011
Sailors arriving for the second day of the 2011 Sovereign Ski Topper World Championship at the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland were greeted today with a nice breeze. The forecast was for this to build through the morning and so it was looking like a good day for the heavier contingent in the fleet. Today was the last day of qualifying before being split into Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets for the final three championships days and so there was all to play for.
Launching got underway at 9:45, though it seemed to take the safety fleet by surprise and there was a short delay whilst some ribs were despatched to shepherd the fleet out of the harbour. With some fast work on the slipway, all boats were afloat in 32 minutes – great team work considering they were launching 173 boats down a two boat wide slip.
As the sailors made their way to the start the breeze was filling in nicely promising some exciting racing. A short, sharp rain shower did nothing to dampen sailors’ spirits as the flights got away one after the other. With all sailors out to the start in plenty of time, racing got underway without delay.
The three scheduled races for that day were completed with some good work by the PRO finishing and restarting flights so that sailors didn’t have to wait around too long getting cold between races. With the wind a steady 15 knots gusting 20 knots on the racecourse, there was some exhilarating sailing along with a few retirements and the odd breakages. By 15:30 racing for the day was complete and sailors were heading into shore after a tough days competition.
There was some excellent sailing on display today with both Matt Venables (GBR) and Robbie Robinson (GBR) both taking three bullets in their respective flights – for Matt this gave him four 1st places and two 2nd places for the six races completed, he is going to take some beating as he is 12 points ahead of 2nd place Robbie.
Unfortunately the evening’s entertainment of model yacht racing was postponed as it was too windy for these boats – maybe tomorrow…
Winners of today's flights were:
Race 1
Yellow - Matt Venables (GBR)
Blue – Danielle Rowe (GBR)
Red - Robbie Robinson (GBR)
Race 2
Yellow - Matt Venables (GBR)
Blue – Edward Connellan (GBR)
Red - Robbie Robinson (GBR)
Race 3
Yellow - Matt Venables (GBR)
Blue – Laura Gilmore (GBR)
Red - Robbie Robinson (GBR)
Following the processing of the results and protests, the fleet was split into Gold, Silver Bronze and so going into day 3, the first of the championship races, positions were:
Gold
1st Matt Venables (GBR)
2nd Robbie Robinson (GBR)
3rd William Tarn-Chapman (GBR)
Silver
1st Imogen Smith (GBR)
2nd Kevin Harrington (IRL)
3rd Joanne Foster (GBR)
Bronze
1st Alex Pocok (IRL)
2nd Andrew Flack (GBR)
3rd Alice Shanahan (IRL)
More photos by Gareth Craig / fotosail.com can be found here.
More information and full results on the event website.