Magic Marine Optimist European Championships - Day 2
by Karenza Morton 20 Jul 2015 11:58 PDT
18-23 July 2015
Racing was abandoned on race day two of the 2015 Magic Marine Optimist European Championships as a combination of poor visibility and strong gusts saw none of the 10 scheduled races completed at Plas Heli, Pwllheli today (Monday 20 July).
After yesterday's champagne conditions, which saw the first three races of the Championship completed for all 256 sailors, breeze gusting over 25knts and forecast to build and with persistent murky drizzle severely hampering visibility on the racecourse, the call was made to return the sailors to shore with the only race that had got underway abandoned.
Three more days of racing are scheduled for the 2015 Magic Marine Optimist European Championships, with the plan tomorrow (Tuesday 21 July) to run three races - races 4, 5 and 6 - with the first warning signal for the first girls' flight at 1200 hours.
Peter Saxton, the event Course Race Officer, said abandoning racing for the day was an easy decision to make in the end.
"The most important thing was how quickly we knew all the sailors were back safely ashore. We got the first girls' race away after a short postponement but by the time they were halfway up the beat visibility had shut down again so we made the decision to abandon their race and get them back to the start area then to return all sailors ashore. It was really good work by all the safety team and coaches and the tallying worked brilliantly once the sailors were ashore."
British sailor Lizzie Beardsall was amongst the sailors waiting on the start line for the second girls' fleet to get underway when racing was canned. She believes it was the right decision. "It was really windy but it was mainly the swell and visibility because with the spray and the swell you couldn't really see the pin and once 'Go' goes you don't really know where the windward mark is."
There are 159 boys and 97 girls entered in the Championships, with racing split into three days of qualifying and a two-day final series. There are three flights of boys (Yellow, Blue and Red) and two of girls for the qualifying series (Yellow and Blue). Spanish teammates Jeronimo Martin-Lagos Terres and Julia Minana topped the overall boys and girls rankings respectively after race day one.
This is the first time in the Championship's official 32-year history that the Optimist Europeans are being held in Britain, and only the second time the event has been hosted on UK waters since Belfast in 1993. The 2015 Europeans are also the first event hosted at the new Plas Heli Welsh Sailing Academy.
The Optimist junior sailing class is widely regarded as the breeding ground for future international sailing success with four-time Olympic champion and America's Cup winner, Sir Ben Ainslie, a former Optimist sailor. Over 90% of sailors at London 2012 raced Optimists as juniors, including TeamGB medalists Hannah Mills, Saskia Clark, Iain Percy, Andrew Simpson and Luke Patience.
For more details about the event visit www.optimisteuros2015.com, like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/optimisteuros2015 or follow us on Twitter @optimisteuros15.