ACO Musto Performance Skiff Worlds in Australia - Day 3
by Perth Worlds Organising Team 8 Jan 2015 11:08 GMT
5-9 January 2015
Big Wednesday was not as big as promised. You better call it Weak Wednesday. What was supposed to be a big day of wind, was a big day of waiting, wind shifting, course changes and a lot of marks were pulled up and down. A big day for Jon Newman though; he finished two times in the first position and is confirming his grip on the title.
This morning at the breakfast table, I saw a few scared sailors. When I asked what's going on, they said "Big Wednesday". The forecast the sailors had was wind from 25 increasing to 30 knots. And their minds went back to the Australian nationals last weekend, were almost everybody was capsizing.
Race 6: Out on the water it was a somewhat different experience. In the first race after some false promise the wind gods allowed the race to start after some delay. The race resembled a game of snakes and ladders with the leaders at the top mark being relegated to the lower orders and Tim Hill coming through into the lead at the bottom mark from 4th last position. After some brief periods of calm and running conditions on the next beat Tim relinquished his lead to the chasing pack. On the last run there was a further reshuffle of the pack with John Newman and Marcus Hamilton coming to the fore with John Reekie snatching the last podium position and the rest of the fleet feeling robbed at some point during the two laps.
Race 7 started after loads of sailors were topped up with water from the patrol boats, in a building Southerly. After the inconsistent wind in heat 6 and the fickle nature of the wind, it was a tough decision as to go left or right up the first work. Richie Robertson, Marcus Hamilton and Jon Newman played the middle and Richie came up trumps at the top mark for the first time with Jon and Marcus in tow. The breeze filled in nicely for the first run with the Port gybe paying with Marcus first, Jon second and Richie 3rd to the gate where there was a course change to the left at around 45 degrees. Jon and Richie took the right gate and Marcus took the Left. Jon spotted the new mark early and stayed hard left while Marcus was covering Richie up the center. Jon rounded the top mark 200 meters ahead of Richie and Marcus 3rd. Jon's downwind speed meant he was untouchable. Marcus rolled Richie half way down with huge left pressure and Richie crossed the line for the 3rd place.
Results can be found here.