Fireball Pre-Worlds at Royal Varuna Yacht Club, Thailand - Overall
by Cormac Bradley & Ben Schulz 31 Mar 2014 15:09 BST
23-27 March 2014
The Fireball Pre-Worlds hosted by the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya, Thailand concluded last week with the two race wins being shared by British crews – Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey (GBR 15107) in Race 7 and Nathan Batchelor & Sam Pascoe (GBR 15087) in Race 8. This gave the latter combination the regatta win with two Australian combinations sharing the podium in second and third overall – Heather McFarlane & Chris Payne (AUS 15048) and Ben Schulz & Doug Sheppard (AUS 15062) respectively.
The top five was closed out by FI Commodore, Joe Jospe and TomEgli (CAN 15024)and the Falats, Veronica and Ben, (GBR 15092).
Going into the last day of racing, only three points separated 1st and 2nd and the day provided the best breeze of the event thus far – 14 knots (average). Again the pumping flag was being flown and enthusiasm was the order of the day for almost all the crews – except those Aussies that had poor stomachs after a meal the night before.
Schulz and Sheppard were quickly and powerfully off the line again and led at the top mark followed by the "B-Team" – Birrell and Brearey. These two exchanged the lead three times over the next lap before Ben led up the second beat and Christian the third beat. At the gybe mark they parked up to allow Batchelor & Pascoe and Allison & Blenkle (AUS 15032) to catch up.
First away from the gybe was Birrell followed by Batchelor while Schulz dropped a place by letting Allison through. So after two retirements for rule violations on the water Birrell and Brearey managed to get a race win under their belts before the regatta closed out.
They didn't contest the final race of the event which allowed Batchelor & Pascoe to claim the last race win showing superior speed to McFarlane & Payne in the stronger breeze. Allison & Blenkle added another 2nd place to their 8-race tally while McFarlane & Payne scored their third 3rd of the series.
Overall Results: (top five)
Pos | Helm & Crew | Sail No | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | R6 | R7 | R8 | Pts |
1 | Nathan Batchelor & Sam Pascoe | GBR 15087 | 1 | dns | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9 |
2 | Heather McFarlane & Chris Payne | AUS 15048 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 15 |
3 | Ben Schulz & Doug Sheppard | AUS 15062 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | dnc | 30 |
4 | Joe Jospe & Tom Egli | CAN 15024 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 42 |
5 | Veronica & Ben falat | GBR 15092 | 4 | 2 | 11 | 6 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 6 | 46 |
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