5.5 Metre World Championship - Day 2
by Robert Deaves 10 Jun 22:30 PDT
9-13 June 2025
Girls on Film (GBR 41 Louise Morton, Charlie Cumbley, Sam Haines) lead the 5.5 Metre World Championship in Sopot, Poland, after two races on Tuesday in very changeable and often wet conditions.
Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian Wilhelmsen, Lasse Berthelsen, Herve Cunningham) won the second race and are tied on points in second with The Jean Genie (GBR 43, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ruairidh Scott), who won the first race.
The championship finally began on Tuesday after Monday was blown out with strong winds. The forecast was 7-13 knots from the south with rain arriving mid-afternoon, but the day was characterised by huge and frequent shifts off the shore that kept the 20 teams from nine countries, as well as the race officer, scratching their heads.
Race 1 was started in 8-10 knots with most of the fleet following the shifts inshore. The Jean Genie made the best of it to round ahead and led all the way round the three laps, just managing to keep the lead downwind when the wind started to drop. Girls on Film was second almost all the way, but on the final downwind, Marie-Françoise XXII (SUI 233, Jürg Menzi, Jürgen Eiermann, Christof Wilke) passed them to take second by a boatlength.
A huge shift in the next race split the fleet at the top mark with Prettynama (GER 79, Max Müller, Philipp Müller, Max Steigel) rounding from the right well ahead of the fleet. Those who went left were at least half a mile behind. The top mark was reset at the gate, but then another big shift came in too late to move the mark again, so the race was abandoned.
The resail of Race 2 started in much lighter conditions, though a large squall and heavy rain arrived at the first mark. Girls on Film rounded ahead of Otto, and maintained the lead until just short of the second top mark, when Otto, favouring the left passed in a another big left hand shift. Girls on Film ended second with Aspire (POL 17, Przemyslaw Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weise) recovering well to cross third.
Charlie Cumbley said the key moments were, "Really big shifts, so just about being patient, I think. Plenty of shifts with the pressure up and down, but the key moment was getting off the start line and making that long tack work first of all and not having too big a panic when it's going back in the other direction."
On the race that got abandoned. "We saw a 60 degree heading change so I'd say that's a reasonably significant shift on the first leg. So, a good decision to abandon, and at least we recovered on the back of that and had another nice race."
Louise Morton added, "Conditions were really up and down, very variably, but very calm on our boat, with very good comms. Charlie and Sam have sailed together before on Etchells so they come as a very good package and we have a nice time, so all smiling.
"I think we are leading, but there's a long way to go and anything can happen here in Sopot, so we'll just enjoy today for what we've had."
Herve Cunningham, from Otto said, "Today was a tricky day. We had a lot of squalls coming in so there was a lot of shifts in the breeze. It was up and down so it was really hard to find a good setup and sails to put on. I think we struggled in the first one but for the second one we made a good call on the sails and we finally had good speed. We had a decent start and that helped us a lot and from there we could express the potential of the boat and with good calls on the tactics, so a happy boat tonight."
On the win in the last race, "After the first race there was a light wind, and the forecast was not to build anymore, so we were confident to put the light sails on. On the last beat we decided to minimise the tacks, because in light winds it is very costly, so Lasse was pretty confident in the left and it turned out to be true, so a good effort from Otto today."
Racing at the 2025 5.5 Metre World Championship in Sopot continues until Friday.