SOLING RACE FOUR GOES TO AUSSIE WITTEY

by Isabelle Musy on 19 Sep 2000 Even though the wind was very light and unstable, the race committee managed
to run two races today on the offshore course F off North Head.

Australian Neville Wittey and his crews Joshua Grace and David Edwards won
the fourth heat of the Soling series after Norwegian Johannessen had snatched
the third one.

It was another shifty day out there on the water and those conditions
suited again Johanessen who followed his earlier win with a third in the 4th heat. He is now leading the overall fleet ahead of New-Zealander Rod Davis who finished in 10th in race 3 and 2nd in race 4.

Davis and his crews Don Cowie and Alan Smith sailed a very good second race
as they rounded the top mark in 8th and managed to come back.

"We missed out a bit of right hand side in the first beat, then we managed to
pick up the right shifts and it worked out well", says Alan Smith.

"We're lucky as things so far have gone our way. Therefore we got confidence
early in the regatta and built that confidence. We've had good tactics and a
good boat speed. But if we have a bad day tomorrow we might lose that
confidence. Let's put it that way! ", comments Rod Davis.

Wittey probably also gained confidence from the days results. In the second race, the Aussie team had a very good start and got away immediately in the first
beat. In the earlier race, Wittey dropped from 3rd to 6th after a big gybing dual
with the German boat.

It was a big come back for the three gold medallist Jochen Schuemann who is
now 8th overall after being ranked 15th last night.

Roy Heiner, who was overall joint leader last night with Rod Davis dropped
to 6th place after having an average day today out the water.

The Dutch team crossed the finish line of race 3 in 13th after picking the
left side of the course on the first beat when the boats on the right were
favoured by a big shift and sailed way.

Heiner didn't seem to be much luckier in race 4 where the wind constantly
shifted.

The Danish gold medallist Jesper Bank is in trouble as he's currently 15th
just ahead of another good contender Spanish Manuel Doreste.

These two, along with French Philippe Presti will have to do very well
tomorrow on the last fleet racing day if they want to qualify for the Match
Racing.

Tomorrow night after race 5 and 6, we should know who will be the 12 nations
qualified for the Match Racing aboard those 3 people keelboats.

Jean-Marie Dauris, one of the French crew summed up the position for the back of the fleet "Tough, tough, another tricky day. We better do something about it if we don't want to be on holiday by tomorrow night"