505 World Championship at Fremantle Sailing Club - Day 2
by Rick Steuart 2 Jan 22:18 PST
2-7 January 2019
Ryan Menzies & Lachlan Hornsby on day 2 of the 505 World Championship © Christophe Favreau /
www.christophefavreau.com
This wasn't the Doctor today, a frontal system had moved in and was pushing some decent breeze into the coast.
The day started with the best part of the breeze whistling in our ears as the course was set around us. The RO had set the course for a challenging three laps in a south sou westerly and 15 to 18 knots of building breeze. The timing was good to send the boats around in 75 minutes and on the proviso that you stayed upright, the racing was going to be fantastic.
The first rounding had Aussies Luke and Peter at the front, but by the second rounding they were way back as the German and USA crews forged ahead in the stiffening breeze. But the racing changed from minute to minute as boats took a tumble in the breeze and at one point on the second lap; the gybe point near the beach was littered with no less than five boats that had fallen over. Let alone the number of boats spread over the course.
A scattering of boats greeted us as we made our way down to the finish line and prepared to take the leaders photo and Mike Martin and Adam Lowry of the US was there to greet us as he added to his winning ways from yesterday. Following him and with a huge grin was Stefan Koechlin and Andreas Achterberg. Third place went to Mike Holt and Carl Smit of the USA.
Racing was called off shortly afterwards due to high winds and the boats returned to shore.
During presentations, Mike's advice on how to win on the day was "Don't lead." As he explained.. "Everyone who got in front of us, fell over." "So we just continued on to the finish line trying our best."
Standings so far:
Mike Martin and Adam Lowry of the USA lead with 12 points, followed by Germany's Wolfgang Hunger and Holger Jess in second with 24 points. Howard Hamlin and Jeff Nelson are currently third with 25 points.
More information, including full results, can be found at int505.org/international-505-world-championships-2019