|
|
NACRA 17 Worlds - Day 1 Clearwater, Florida |
|
|
|
|
|
It was a big and blustery opening race that kicked
off the Nacra 17 World Championships today in Clearwater, Florida.
The first race started in a fairly benign 11-12 knots, although the
43 crews probably had an inkling that something big was going to
happen when the breeze suddenly shifted 30 or 40 degrees to the left
with less than a minute to the start gun. |
|
This played nicely into the hands of the
defending World Champions Billy Besson and Marie Riou (FRA) who had
been fighting hard for position at the left-hand of the start line.
The French put the hammer down out of the line and tacked on to the
layline for the top mark, and they never relinquished the lead.
Somehow, even with the big wind shift, a number of the usual
suspects still found their way to the front of the pack, with the
Swiss team of Matías Bühler and Nathalie Brugger chasing the French
around the track, coming in second ahead of the Spanish pair of
Iker Martinez and Julia Rita.
|
|
|
As the race progressed, the breeze built and built, with the shallow
waters of Clearwater kicking up a vicious, steep chop. This created
perfect conditions for high-speed pitchpoling and it caught out a
number of teams including the top Kiwi crew of Gemma Jones and Jason
Saunders who came a cropper towards the bottom gate. “It’s a shame
because we like the big breeze normally,” said Jones. “But we fell in
twice today. Not good.” The capsizes dropped the New Zealand duo out
of the front pack and back to 25th at the
finish.
|
|
The
Australian team of Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin were one of a
number of crews who had come down to the boatpark this morning to
discover that some of their kit had either been damaged or
disappeared altogether. Stormy winds and a high tide had washed the
water high up the beach, with a few boats actually afloat on the
shallow sands. Some teams’ sails were buried below the sand, there
was damage to some hulls, but for the Aussies their sail and
equipment box had floated away completely. Fortunately it showed up
in a marina further down the coast and Waterhouse was able to use his
waterlogged equipment to notch up a 4th place finish.
With the breeze whistling up to over 20 knots, and the waves becoming
more treacherous by the minute, the race committee was forced to
abandon any further racing for the day. So only one race complete,
and even then the results remain in doubt after some teams have
submitted protest forms claiming that most of the fleet failed to go
around the spacer mark at the top of the second windward leg.
The race committee had moved the windward mark to take account of the
big wind shift, but most of the sailors failed to see the small
spacer mark that had been situated nearby and assumed that there was
no space mark at all. One coach commented: “The only reason why some
of the boats towards the back of the fleet went round the spacer mark
was because they couldn’t bear away properly.” The implication being
that it was only boathandling incompetence that led to some boats
going around the spacer mark by happy accident.
Tomorrow’s forecast promises more moderate and manageable breezes,
and the sailors will be hoping they will be able to catch up on the
schedule and get some solid scores on the board. |
|
|
|
|
Attention Sailing Organizations & PR Agencies:
Add us to your distribution list, contact us today
|
|