35th Student Yachting World Cup at Le Pouliguen, France - Day 3
by Icarus Sailing Media 18 Oct 2015 15:19 BST
13-20 October 2015
The weather is still nice at Le Pouliguen on Saturday with the sun shining. The E-NE wind was a bit stronger than on Friday, around 12 knots with gusts up to 17 knots. Today, the teams took part in four races; three inshore and one coastal.
The first race showed no real surprise for the first places, compared to previous results. Ireland won, followed by Switzerland and Southampton. Cambridge, on the other hand, finished second to last, their worst result so far. A clever strategic move by France helped them move up three places at the last buoy and finish sixth, their best performance yet, like Japan who finished fifth.
The second inshore race saw Southampton securing the win, beating Switzerland and Ireland to the line. Canada finished fourth for the second time of the day and closed to the head group, far away from the others. It was a good day for the Canadian team although their results might not be worthy of what they achieved. Norway and Cambridge were judged OCS.
The third race of the day was fiercely competed, as the ninth boat crossed the finish line barely four minutes after the first. Thanks to an excellent start which made them almost unreachable, Switzerland came ahead of the fleet, followed by Scotland and Cambridge. The race started under black flag, leading to the disqualification of Southampton and Norway.
The last race of the day was a coastal race behind the 'Evens' islands, with a wind increasing from 11 knots at the beginning to 15 knots at the end. Southampton, the defending team, managed to cross the line first, followed very closely by the Cambridge team. Later came Canada and then Switzerland, who caught up after being forced to dip the line after the start. At the other end of the race, France lost three places due to one bad move, and finished ninth. The ranking was completed by Norway who couldn't catch up after dipping the line more than two minutes after being recalled.
www.sywoc.org