Star World Championship at Coral Reef Yacht Club - Day 5
by Star Worlds 2016 16 Apr 2016 07:47 BST
7-17 April 2016
Cracking day ahead of decider
It took four attempts for the 72 teams to begin the fifth race in the 2016 Star World Championship. The fleet was aggressive on the starting line and with the majority of the boats over early, the Race Officer ordered a general recall. Following the general recall, Race Committee squared the starting line pushing the pin forward for the next start. Shortly after the second starting sequence began and the fleet was once again over so they went into a third one.
Only three teams were over: Lars Ahlstrom & Lars Edwall: Bert Collins & Jacob Doyle and James Babel & Scott Benson. Throughout the rest of the race, the Race Committee continued to monitor the unstable wind and made every necessary adjustment to ensure the sailors had a fair race.
The race was intense and the leaders changed at every mark. It was a stressful one, watching the sailors fight in a boat-to-boat combat for the lead. At the first mark, Peter Vesella took the lead with a tight fleet rounding. Paul Cayard came from the left side of the course and tacked behind Peter consolidating the second place. The downwind was a speed battle where Luke Lawrence took a big advantage rounding the second mark in first position.
He was ahead of the fleet till the last downwind where Diego Negri took the lead and made a solid race to the finish line.
With five of six scheduled races completed and with the worst score discarded there are still 3 teams on the bubble hoping to sail well enough to keep their hopes alive for the gold.
Results after Day 5: (top ten, 5 races)
1 Diego Negri / Sergio Lambertenghi
2 Augie Diaz / Bruno Prada
3 Brian Ledbetter / Joshua Revkin
4 Peter Vessella / Phil Trinter
5 Lars Schmidt Grael / Samuel Goncalves
6 Torben Schmidt Grael / Guilherme de Almeida
7 Andrew Macdonald / Brad Nichol
8 Luke Lawrence / Ian Coleman
9 George Szabo / Steve Mitchell
10 Paul Cayard / Brian Fatih
The conditions were gorgeous. The 7 Knots had built up to 10 knots at 185 degrees of wind.
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