Flying Dutchman World Championship at Nelson Yacht Club - Days 1-3
by Alisdair Daines 18 Feb 2019 23:14 PST
16-21 February 2019
2019 Flying Dutchman World Championships © Graeme Robertson
The first three days of the Flying Dutchman World Championships have been completed. The results are close at the top of the leader board with Hun 70 (Szabolcs Majthenyi and András Domokos) leading on 7 points with GER 88 (Kay-Uwe Lüdtke and Kai Schäfers) second on 11 points and NED 26 (Enno Kramer and Ard Geelkerken) in third on 14 point. AUS 7 and GER 98 are next and tied on 20 points.
Tasman Bay has given a taste of the sailing conditions she can provide. Day 1 started in a perfect 10 knots breeze which suddenly built to 20 knots just after the start. This caught many sailors by surprise with rapid adjustments required. Quite a number of boats ended up capsizing. The race was won by AUS 7 followed by HUN 70 with GER 98 third. Due to the stronger winds the race offer postponed the second race to day two.
Three races were sailed on day 2 with perfect sailing conditions. The breeze started at around 10 knots slowly building to around 16 knots later in the day. Larger waves gave the boats good surfing conditions on the downwind legs. It was a good day for HUN 70 with placings on 1, 1, 2. To lead overall.
Day three provided similar conditions to day two but with smaller waves. The top three boats swapped placings in the races with HUN 70 finishing 1 and 2, GER 88 finishing 2 and 1 and NED 26 finishing 3 and 3.
All of the boats in the fleet are experiencing close racing with some good battles developing for placings throughout.
Today is a lay day with no sailing. Two races are scheduled for Wednesday and one on Thursday. We expect to see more close racing over the last two days.
For more information and full results visit www.nelsonyachtclub.org.nz