Courtois leads Womens World Match Racing - Day 2
by RNZYS Media 11 Nov 2022 02:59 PST
11 November 2022
Barfoot & Thompson Women's World Match Racing Championships - Day 2 - November 11, 2022 - Auckland © Adam Mustill
Defending World Champion, Pauline Courtois (FRA) has retained her lead in the 2022 Barfoot & Thompson Women’s Match Racing World Championship, after a shortened second day of racing.
Courtois prevailed in the Match of the Day with Celia Willison (NZL), who was second on the overnight leaderboard, but Willison shares second overall with Anna Östling (SWE). They have 9pts, after 15 Flights have been completed. Courtois has only lost one match so far in the regatta, while the other two have lost two.
Johanna Berqvist (AUS) beat Courtois in Match 4 of Flight 14, however the four times winner of the world championship prevailed in the penultimate match of the day against Willison (NZL), to retain her lead from Day 1.
The fourteen teams from seven nations had to sit out a heavy easterly storm, which hit Auckland overnight, and waited for five hours for conditions to improve so racing could commence on the upper Waitemata Harbour.
Yesterday, the teams flew through Day 1 in challenging conditions, with 11 flights completed and nine hours on the water.
The teams took to the Waitemata Harbour at 1600 hours today, this time west of the Harbour Bridge where the conditions were more settled but still providing about 15 knots of east-northeast conditions.
Teams continued to battle rain and low cloud, but it didn’t hinder the front-runners Pauline Courtois (FRA, Match in Pink), Celia Willison (NZL, Edge Women’s Racing) and Anna Östling (SWE, Wings Racing), all likely to make their way to the quarter-finals tomorrow, with Megan Thomson (NZL, 2.0 Racing) just one race away from the securing her team a spot.
On Saturday, Day 3, six teams will fight for the four remaining quarter final spots and will go head to head with the top ranked teams, however Courtois, the current four time world champion, will be hard to beat.
Skipper of New Zealand’s 2.0 Racing, Megan Thomson knows there’s an exciting challenge ahead.
“It will be a nail-biting day tomorrow to get to the quarter-finals and I think it will be pretty tough,” said Thomson. “All the points look close so we’re taking it one race at a time. I think we pulled through with some good boat handling earlier this week and I’d like to credit the crew for that! Tomorrow it's going to soften off so there’s definitely more exciting match racing to come,” continued Thomson.
Despite plenty of experience sailing on the Waitemata Harbour, Thomson said “it’s still anyone's game.”
“Having local knowledge has helped at times but it's just so changeable. Racing on the other side of the bridge meant the left was really strong and you needed to come off the start line really well,” said Thomson.
International Race Officer, Megan Kensington commented on today's conditions and noted a promising forecast ahead.
“Today was probably easier than yesterday. We still had some big gusts but nowhere near what we had yesterday. We’re in good shape going into tomorrow and we’re well through the programme because we were able to get so much done yesterday, and then completed four flights today” stated Kensington.
“We’ll finish off the round robin in the morning, and then head straight into the quarterfinals. The forecast is looking great for the weekend, almost perfect conditions for match racing” said Kensington.
Today's racing wrapped up at the end of flight 15, with three further round robin flights scheduled tomorrow before the quarter-final event. Auckland’s weather is expected to do a ‘full 180’, with just 20% cloud cover, plenty of sun and a switch to a north westerly breeze.
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