Gul Fireball World Championships at Plas Heli - Yet another 'all change'
by Dougal Henshall 25 Aug 2015 12:40 BST
17-28 August 2015
There is a great deal of activity going on in the dinghy pound this morning as crews rapidly reset their rigs. Yesterday had mainly been a day for upright masts and looking to power up. However, with a vigorous low pressure system approaching, the winds have pulled around to the south and are already considered brisk - and expected to freshen further.
With a forecast like that, any bookmakers would be offering short odds on the Gillard/Anderton pairing leading from the front, for these are the conditions that they revel in. Yet, as the pair confessed last night, they've simply not shown the required consistency so far in the World Championships, a trait that was almost a 'given' the week before in the National Championships.
The overnight leader here at Plas Heli, 'DJ' Edwards is no stranger to the pressures of being at the top of the leader board, seeing that he won his first Worlds way back in 1997! Though he and crew Vyv Townend clearly have both the boatspeed and the experience to be at the front, DJ admitted that the passage of time was not making it any easier and that after yesterday's two second places, he was suffering a bit today with stiff and tired limbs.
Seeing that the second triangle of the afternoon race yesterday saw the back of the mid-fleet down to the tail enders struggling with the off wind legs, a large gap is expected to open up today between the hard charging front runners and the rest. One team for whom the sound of flogging halyards (even in the dinghy park) is positive mood music is the Australian team of Ben Schulz and Doug Sheppard. Their afternoon blast in the sun yesterday turned to a gloomy prospect as the International Jury found against them for a start line coming together with one of the French boats. Ben's reaction, that he'd give up sailing and replace it with golf might just be due a rethink given the fact that today's conditions are what they go Fireballing for.
Today is the mid-point in the Championships and with some boats already having used up their first discard, there is no room for error. In addition, the fleet has a VIP guest spectating from the Committee boat (though there are many who would wonder what VIP stands for in respect to Bib Fisher). It is nigh on 50 years since Bon won the first ever World Championships at Hayling Island, he is due for a treat of high quality heavy weather dinghy sailing today.
In the meantime, the YachtsandYachting.com 'office' here at Plas Heli – a camper van in the dinghy park, has just been shaken repeatedly by what must have been a very fruity gust of wind.. This is now the meat of the new weather forecast;
Big gusts expected!
www.fireballworlds2015.com