Wireless Communications International 505 World Championship at Adelaide Sailing Club Day 1

by Jordan Spencer 2 Jan 14:39 PST 2-7 January 2025

Top mark with Rob Duessen and David Snead © Christophe Favreau

Day 1 of the Wireless Communications 505 World Championships, from a weather perspective, was crazy. Everything looked normal at the start of the day. Beautiful blue skies, a gentle breeze from the South, with everyone expecting a seabreeze to start filling in from the South West.

An hour or so before racing, a Nor' Wester came in and locals were saying, "I have never seen that before". Eventually, it did move back to the seabreeze direction of around 210-220, but the breeze was never stable, clocking to 160 at times, flicking left and right with big pressure changes. Race 1 started in a quickly freshening 12-15 knots, and we thought we were on for 25 knots by the end of day, but by race 2, we were down to 8-10 knots.

I am sure meteorologists could explain it, but what we had was a very challenging day. It would be difficult to have a consistent scorecard today. Beyond the challenging conditions, expectations for wind the next two days are low, resulting in the race officer electing to run three races.

The first race was won by Mike Holt and Carl Smit. The California locals, neither of whom live in California anymore, held out the West Australian locals, Peter Nicholas and Luke Payne - neither of whom live in West Australia anymore. Third was South Australian locals, Sandy Higgins and Paul Marsh, with only Sandy still living locally, (how do these crews get to train together)? As stated, the challenging conditions made it hard to be consistent at the front. Leading at the top mark the first time in race 1 was the German pairing of Micki Daisenberger and Johannes Tellen. With our top two in second and third. Unfortunately for Micki and Johannes they dropped to 7th in race 1.

Alex and Marcus enjoying their time in second - photo © Christophe Favreau

While consistency was difficult today, there were a couple of boats that did shine. None more so than race 2 winners Peter Nicholas and Luke Payne. Both are pro sailors, and were sailing their boat perfectly today. They led by a long way at the first mark after some big wind shifts on the course, and were never headed. They looked so fast uphill and are almost untouchable downwind when there is breeze on. Second at the top mark the first time was the first female skipper, Alexandra Alder sailing with Marcus Cooper. The SA locals were smoking, but a torn kite saw them fall to 9th. Their spot was taken by Robin Duessen and David Snoad, also SA locals, finishing second ahead of the ever present Poms, Nathan Batchelor and Sam Pascoe.

Peter Nicholas and Luke Payne lead the fleet - photo © Christophe Favreau

Race 3 saw a big split in the wind hit just after the start, with big left pressure along the shore and pressure 30 degrees further right out to sea. It made for some difficult choices. Not for Nicholas and Payne though, as they once again powered to the lead. They didn't have it all their own way, with Batchelor and Pascoe challenging hard, as were Jan Saugmann and Nick 'Camel' Johnston who finished third. To give you some perspective on what we were seeing in race 3, it was won by two West Australians'. One who lives in Sweden, one who lives in New Zealand and sails for Denmark in SailGP. Second were Batchelor and Pascoe, two UK sailors and third were Saugman and Johnston, a Dane and an Aussie sailing a borrowed boat, the spare Europe based boat, of and Englishman who lives in the US. Truely a World championship.

After three races of a planned 10 race series, overall, Nicholas and Payne lead, Higgins and Marsh are second and Holt and Smit are third. We have two very hot days ahead in Adelaide. That usually means no wind, so stand by.

Results can be found here.

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