IOM Europeans at Sailing Club of Rijeka, Cres, Croatia - Day 4
by Icarus Sailing Media 22 Nov 2012 22:22 PST
17-24 November 2012
Two Brits at the top
The sun disappeared behind the clouds today and so did the wind. Despite the light conditions, the race scheduled continued normally and the first set of races was completed within the first hour.
France's Olivier Cohen seemed to like these slow races and having the time to develop his strategy, he took advantage of the shifts and scored the bullet. Overall leader Brad Gibson from Britain had his worst race of the championship so far but that did not seem to affect him so much since his main opponent Alexis Carre had a disappointing performance and did not even manage to qualify at Heat A.
After the completion of the first race the wind died completely and the race committee was forced to postpone races for an hour waiting for conditions to improve again. Weighing up all their choices they finally decided to change the race area and move it to the southern course, where the wind had started to pick up, so everyone gathered their equipment and headed there. This time it was Croatian's Skrlj to shine. He had a great start at the pin end and after a few meters tacked and headed close to the shore. After that, it was a one way victory. He just maintained his lead for the rest of the race and finished first. With today's performance he managed to climb in to 8th place overall.
At the top of the list is still UK's Brad Gibson, now followed by his compatriot Graham Elliot who after two top finishes today is a strong candidate for the podium. Third in line is Croatia's Zvonko Jelacic with an exceptional day as well. He managed to throw off the podium Alexis Carre who is now fourth.
As this championship slowly reaches its conclusion, the pressure rises and the last days are not to be missed.
Full results can be found here.