Sailing Worlds Aarhus: Big breeze tests Olympic fleets on Day 4

by Richard Gladwell/Matthew Pryor 5 Aug 2018 22:38 PDT 6 August 2018

Offshore westerlies building over 20kts and gusting 30kts tested competitors on Day 4 of the Sailing World Championships being staged at Aarhus, Denmark.

With the prevailing offshore westerlies continuing to build over 20 knots, gusting 30 on the furthest courses out in the Bay of Aarhus.

The Mens and Womens Kiteboarding - touted for a place at the 2024 Olympic Regatta are making their debut at Aarhus.

Unconfirmed reports had it that some of the kiteboard riders didn't believe the weather forecast of fresh breezes and loaded their bigger kites - getting into trouble as they headed offshore - and the breeze cracked in as forecast.

It was a wild welcome to Olympic sailing with unconfirmed reports that three riders were admitted to hospital with one suffering serious injuries after doing a face plant into a mark at 40kts.

Nevertheless, the Mens fleet has attracted a fleet of 61 riders. Dominant was Nicolas Parlier (FRA) who won each of the six races sailed to date - an outstanding performance.

The Womens fleet has attracted just 11 entries from just nine countries, and cannot justify an Olympic event off that base. Outside the top two, four competitors are separated by five points - making for moderately tight racing mid-fleet. In the tail, three competitors failed to finish the first and third races.

Aarhus is also the Olympic debut for the Nacra 17 class - in its full foiling mode.

Missing is a Olympic Gold and Silver medalist in the 49er class, and Volvo Ocean Race skipper, Iker Martinez (ESP) who has a RRS 69.2 notice sitting alongside his name - the published complaint is devoid of detail on the incident - but which is understood to involve a modification of a daggerboard case in the one-design class.

Translating the World Sailing-speak and Regulations Martinez is facing a Misconduct charge laid under Regulation 35.4.4(c) by the Event Disciplinary Investigating Officer - which is about as serious as you can get in the sport.

The initial Hearing was held at noon in Aarhus and adjourned until Wednesday to allow Martinez time to prepare his response. The notes from the Hearing can be seen by clicking here

In the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race Martinez was given a two-point penalty by the International Jury for altering the Volvo 65 MAPFRE at sea after running into severe weather conditions. It was claimed as skipper he hadn't received permission to make the repair. Martinez took the view that the repair was urgent and essential and while he had tried to get permission had not had a response and proceeded anyway.

On the water, despite the huffing puffing about the merits of changing the Nacra 17 class to a full foiler, a field of 64 is competing - split into three fleets for the Mixed event.

Leading is the European champions of just two weeks ago Ruggero Tita and Caterina Santi (ITA) - with three wins from three races. At the other end of the fleet - 51st of 64 is the Silver Medalists from the Open Europeans, Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders. They broke a pin in their daggerboard case causing a foil to pop out. The issue forced them out of two races. After effecting a repair and the Kiwis managed to finish the third and final race of the day in 11th place to lie 51st overall.

The 2016 Olympic Gold medalists, Santiago Lange and Cecilia Saroli, had a consistent day returning two second places and a third to lie in third overall after discards are applied.

This regatta is the first of the Olympic Qualifiers for Tokyo 2020. The idea is for the top teams to get the Olympic qualification out of the way this week and focus on their performance for the remaining two years before Enoshima, without the pressure of worrying about Olympic qualification.

In many classes with some of the top sailors deciding to take time out, have a family, or compete in a Volvo OR it is not always the first string sailor who will be the top placed and qualify their country for Tokyo2020.

That creates some interesting situations for the state-funded teams who previously have been obliged to put the bulk of their funding and resources behind the so-called "shadow" Olympic team which almost picks itself at this Qualifying regatta.

It remains to be seen quite what happens to your Peter Burlings and Blair Tukes, who have decided to give this regatta a miss. In fact, the Kiwis have a double problem with two crews in the top three overall in the 49er skiff. With a subjective Olympic selection in place in many countries to ensure they don't get snagged by a freak Olympic trials result, it is going to be a hard call to lift an established superstar around a crew who has put in the effort in the first two years and qualified their country for Tokyo2020.

A similar situation exists in all the other fleets - with the added pressure that only 40% of the Olympic qualification places are allocated at Aarhus - which often means a finish in the top eight countries required.

Fortunately Japanese crews are performing remarkably well at this regatta, and as the host country they are automatically entitled to a place in their home Olympics - the top eight often becomes the top nine countries on the result sheet.

Another point of interest is the performance of the Youth crews - some of whom competed in the Youth Worlds last month in Texas, and in earlier years.

One of the stunning performance from this group on Day 4 came from Veerle Ten Have (NZL) who led the early stages of Race 2 of the Women's RS:X Blue fleet before going in on the penultimate leg during a gybe for the finish. She recovered to finish fifth over the line.

Another came from three times World Youth Champion, Emma Wilson (GBR) who led her first race of the day from start to finish, but dropped to 16th in the second race to lie in 15th overall - one place ahead of Blanca Manchon (ESP) the 2010 World Champion and one of many sailors in this event who are returning to competitive sailing after a break to have a family.

2012 Olympic Bronze medalist Zofia Noceti-Klepacka, is well used to the fresh air, flat water conditions in her native Poland. After three races today she is third overall.

"There was more wind with every hour," she said. "Today was perfect conditions for the sailors, especially for me, I like planing conditions. In the third race, I had a crash. It wasn’t my fault, and there’s a protest, and I hope the jury will give me a redress because my sail went in the water and I lost a lot of time. But I’m happy. I wish it could be like this every day. It’s shifty conditions, and I grew up on a lake, and I enjoy it."

She would have been even less happy when news came through later that Principal Race Officer had abandoned the second race (because a mark was out of position), where she finished fourth.

Leaderboards

Men’s RS:X windsurfing Some of the usual suspects dominated day one of the men’s RS:X with France’s Louis Giard continuing his dominant 2018 form to top the leaderboard. But two more familiar Flying Dutchmen are breathing down his neck. Kiran Badloe won his last race to take the yellow bib from his friend and the king he would depose – double Olympic champion, Dorian van Rijsselberghe. The surprise was Italy’s Daniele Benedetti in second after just two months training following eight months out with a knee injury. And China’s class world champion, Bing Ye, was lying 73rd overall after finishing 34th, 34th and 33rd. A Chinese men’s team that had been so dominant in Enoshima, Japan was dispersed on the winds.

Men’s Kiteboarding A momentous World Championship debut saw France’s Nicolas Parlier underlined exactly why he is the red-hot favourite by winning all six of his races. His compatriot, Theo de Ramecourt was almost as dominant in the second fleet.

Women’s Kiteboarding Likewise, USA’s Daniel Moroz showed why she is the red-hot favourite in the women’s kite by winning the last two of her three races. She will have been furious to finish second in her first one.

Nacra 17 Italy’s Ruggero Tita and Caterina Marianna Banti underlined the pre-boat park consensus that "there are the Italians and everybody else" by winning all three of their races in choppy conditions that were too hot for handle for many in the fleet.

49er Yesterday, it was one New Zealand crew ahead of two French ones, it is now the reverse. Two third places took France’s Lucas Rual and Emile Amorol top of the leaderboard, ahead of the two New Zealand crews in this huge 86-boat class with three fleets. But two powerful crews have moved ominously onto their shoulders, Croatia’s Sime Fantela (Rio 2016 Olympic champion in the 470) and his brother, Mihovil Fantela, and Australia’s William Phillips and Iain "Goobs" Jensen (Olympic gold medallist in 2012 and silver medallist in 2016 with Nathan Outteridge) who is standing in for Phillips’s injured brother Sam.

49er FX Local favourites Ida Marie Baad Nielsen and Marie Thusgaard Olsen, who have grown up racing in the Bay of Aarhus and cheered the return of the westerlies as other quivered, moved to the top of the leaderboard with a solid third and fourth. Great Britain’s Charlotte Dobson and Saskia Tidey had a second place and a win to move into second overall with the Olympic and Volvo legends all hovering on their shoulders.

Laser Despite a thirteenth and fourth place, New Zealander Sam Meech (bronze in the Rio 2016 medallist), stays top but the field of Olympic and world champions is now bunched much more closely behind him.

Laser Radial Two second places from Anne-Marie Rindom saw Denmark claim another top spot. The surprise is that Netherland’s Olympic champion, Marit Bouwmeester is still back in ninth after a 16th place in her first race of the day.

Finn, Men’s 470s, Women’s 470 were on a lay-day and will recommence in gold and silver fleets tomorrow.

Quotes from the boats:

Charline Picon (France) – Women’s RS:X (Rio 2016 Olympic champion) "This Olympic cycle is different because I had a baby nine months ago. So this year it will be hard to go for the highest spot in the podium, but I will do everything to train the best I can and show that people can have confidence in me over the next years and Tokyo 2020.

"The comeback is definitely hard after a baby. I really tried to take advantage of the first few months, no exercise. You had to build up muscle again and that was really difficult because it’s a lot of work for small gains.

For organisation at the moment, I have to depend a lot on my family. My parents were with me during the World Cup in Hyères to look after the baby, because when you compete or train, it’s one, two or three weeks sometimes. For a mum, with her first baby, it’s hard to leave them for that long.

So for me to feel good in my life as an athlete, I need to feel good in my life as a mum and for that, it means having my daughter by my side."

Yunxiu Lu – China – Women’s RS:X "It was hard conditions and I just tried to do my best. I hope so (that China can dominate like in last year’s class World Championships). The conditions are really unknown to us, we are trying our best and I really hope the Chinese team can have some good results this time.

"We’ve been here since July 16. (Food has been an issue for the Chinese team) Sometimes we eat Chinese food, sometimes sandwiches. All the high-level sailors we just have not make any stupid mistakes. I hope I can finish in the top three."

Ruggero Tita – Italy - Nacra "There is plenty of training behind this and it’s also about feeling the boat and the conditions. As our coach says, ‘foiling is an art’. Strong winds are what we work well with and today we showed it.

We had an average of 20 knots today with choppy waves and it was really tricky to sail downwind fast, but we managed to do it pretty good. We don’t do anything different form everybody else. It’s about the training and having a good communication. The competition here is high and you can feel it in the boat park but it’s great that we are getting in the Olympic mode.

Thomas Zajac – Austria - Nacra "Today was challenging. We had steep waves on our course, but we got a pretty good result. We saw some teams breaking some stuff, so we are actually quite happy that nothing happened to us in these conditions. We had big choppy waves and gusts in the 20s and it was also shifty.

"For us, it was about putting a bit of risk on downwinds, so we will pick up speed by foiling, but you don’t want to risk it too much. We found the right balance."

Louis Giard – France – Men’s RS:X "It’s a nice start. The wind was shifting a bit and also the pressure from 10-12 knots gusting to 20. For us windsurfers that’s a big difference. I managed to make some good choices today. Dorian was really strong. It’s the first time I’ve seen him at this level since the last Olympics."

Results available here - aarhus2018.sailing.org/results.

Videos from the Hempel Sailing World Championships are available here - aarhus2018.sailing.org/watch

Sailing will be shown live on Sail-World.com starting around 1000hrs UTC

Live tracking, SAP sailing analytics, live weather data and racing status is available by clicking here

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