Finn Gold Cup at Vallensbæk, Denmark - Day 2

Jonas Høgh Christensen on day two of the Finn Gold Cup © Tosca Zambra / www.fotozambra.it

Zach Railey on day two of the Finn Gold Cup © Tosca Zambra / www.fotozambra.it

Steadier breeze brings favourites to front

After two races sailed in a moderate southerly, Zach Railey (USA) has taken the lead at the Finn Gold Cup in Vallensbaek, Denmark. The first race went to Giles Scott (GBR), leading from start to finish, while the second race in a stronger breeze was won by Jonas Høgh Christensen (DEN) in the closing stages as the very tight leading group surfed to the finished line.

As usual both races started after one general recall under the black flag. Race three was sailed in a patchy 9-10 knots. Race winner Giles Scott (GBR) started near the committee boat and favoured the right hand side. He said, “Out of the start I tacked off and went right and took a small shift back into the middle and as I was coming across I tacked beneath the leading group and got across the right again. I then tacked on the layline and actually ended up overstanding the first mark when a big right hand shift came in.”

Behind him at the top mark were Michael Maier (CZE), Mark Andrews (GBR), Ed Wright (GBR), Deniss Karpak (EST) and winner of race one, Bryan Boyd (USA).

By the gate Wright had moved into second while Dan Slater (NZL) sailed a blistering leg to round third. Scott maintained his lead on the final downwind. He said, “From there it was pretty simple. I was going pretty fast down the run and covered the fleet up the second beat and I had a big enough lead to ease off towards the end.” He took the race win from Wright, Slater, Andrews and Karpak.

Race four got underway in a slightly increased wind of 12-14 knots after the course was changed to accommodate a significant change in the wind. Again the right side was favoured.

Race winner Jonas Høgh Christensen (DEN) tells the story. “It was a tough race but finally we had some decent wind with no 50 degree shifts up the first beat. So far I have been on the wrong side of every big shift. I got a good start and played the right side and tried just to stay in the top ten coming round the first mark.”

Giorgio Poggi (ITA) led round the top mark ahead of Tapio Nirko (FIN), Rafael Trujillo (ESP), Florian Raudaschl (AUT) and Andrew Mills (GBR).

Høgh Christensen rounded in seventh. “Down the run I sailed a little straighter to the bottom mark and had some good pressure and led through the gate. I tried to stay in front up the beat and tacked for the windward mark ahead with a little group group got a 20 degree shift and just managed to pass me. I couldn't do anything about it but it was really close.”

Trujillo rounded the top mark in the lead with Zach Railey (USA), Slater, Nirkko, and Høgh Christensen right behind him.

Høgh Christensen continued, “I rounded in fifth and then tried to get in the grove again downwind and took the lead the final 100 metres to the finish.” He crossed the line surfing just seconds ahead of Ivan Kjlakovic Gaspic (CRO) who moved from about 12th to second on the final run, Tapio Nirkko (FIN), Trujillo and Slater.

The Dane said, “It was close racing for sure and finally all the top guys were up there and the leading group were all within 10 seconds at the finish. It was a real drag race and finally a proper Finn race. Everyone was fighting hard and laughing and having a good time fighting. It was perfect.”

The winner of race three had a different story. Scott said “I had a very bad start in the second race. I managed to get my tiller extension caught under the traveller on the start line. I was flapping around and in a right mess. I managed to dig myself out of that and went up the middle right, not as far right as the leaders did but I ended up 13th round the windward mark.

“In fact I was all over the place today. I was laying the final windward mark and a shift came through and I did a really bad tack and fouled the boat behind so ended up doing turns and lost more places. But it's only the second day.” He is lying second overall, while Slater had the best of the day to move up to third.

Yesterday's overnight leader Rafal Szukiel had problems. He said, “Most of the downwind was not good for me. I was not fast today. I lost a lot and just couldn't get going. But tomorrow is another day and another two races.”

Nirkko finally had a good race after a poor start to the series. He said, “I played the right corner on both beats. Downwind was free pumping which was really fun as you could really catch the waves. The last downwind was really exciting. Rafa lost his lead half way down the leg. He took an angle away from some of the others and they closed up, but the wind was very patchy, and it was really easy to lose the pressure. We finished really tight. One wave could make all the difference. And that's what made the sailing really fun.”

Høgh Christensen won the Finn Gold Cup in 2006 and is currently lying in 14th place after posting a 17th in Tuesday's morning race to add to his afternoon race win. This is his first regatta since finishing sixth at the Olympics last year and he has yet to decide if or when he will return to full time Finn sailing. “I like the boat, I like the class and made a lot of friends from all over the world. A lot of them have stopped as well so it won't be quite the same coming back. London 2012 is very attractive but this Gold Cup is, for the time being, my last Finn event. I actually had my very first regatta in Vallensbæk in Optis so some would say that I have come full circle. As of this Gold Cup I have ended my Olympic campaign but I have decided to have a look at it three months before the worlds in 2011 to consider a comeback.”

After four races the leader is the 2008 Olympic silver medallist Zach Railey (USA). Railey claimed two sixth places today to take an eight point lead at the top, though with the discard coming in after the next race, things could change considerable.

“Today I just tried to get up there and get a good position. It's been really shifty so far. But they're running really good races here given the conditions. When the wind changes they are shifting the marks and changing the line really well. I don't know why it was so shifty today. Yesterday it was off the land but today it was from the sea so should have been steadier and it was also pretty clear. We have seven more races to go and the regatta is not even half way over. You just have to keep your head out of the boat and make the best of what you get.”

Two more races are scheduled each day at 11.00 until Friday, with the medal race and the final race for the rest on Saturday.

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The young blades (report from Sailing Intelligence)

One of the surprise results from day one of the Finn Gold Cup, here at Vallensbæk Sailing Club on the outskirts of Copenhagen, was the 13th place in the 89 boat fleet of the event’s youngest competitor, 16-year-old Brazilian Jorge Zarif.

One of 13 ‘Junior’ Finn sailors here in Vallensbæk (they must have been born after 1 January 1988), young Zarif holds the advantage of having Finn sailing in his blood. His father Jorge Zarif Neto represented Brazil in the Finn at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 and again in Seoul in 1988, finishing eighth and 13th respectively. He was Finn sailing all the way through until March last year when sadly he died from a heart attack, aged 50.

From Sao Paolo, Zarif junior says he came to his first Finn Gold Cup in 2002, but it was only when he saw his father win a race at the Finn Gold Cup in Rio in 2004 that he decided the Olympic men’s heavyweight singlehander was the boat for him.

“This is my third year sailing a Finn, but before that I was a Laser sailor,” he says. This is not his first time to Denmark. Zarif was here last year in Århus for the ISAF Volvo Youth Sailing World Championships in the Laser, where he admits he did well because it was a very strong wind regatta and even though he was only in his mid-teens even then he was still large for the boat. The Youth Worlds are in his native Brazil this year, but he isn’t taking part because he is definitely too big for the Laser Radial.

Unfortunately he is at present still not quite big enough for the Finn, even though he is a burly 16-year-old. “I am getting big, but I need to be a little bigger, because in big winds, I don’t have good speed. Today with strong winds I was a little worse than yesterday when it was light.”

Before his father died he got to compete against him and last year both Zarifs took part in the Brazilian Finn trials to go to the Beijing Olympics. He came second, just a point behind Eduardo Couto who ended up going, while his father was fourth.

Certainly Olympic prospects are on the cards and Zarif says he would love to go to Weymouth in 2012, although he suspects Couto will be hard to beat. “He will probably go. It will be difficult, but I will do it if it is possible. Ben Ainslie got his first medal when he was 19. So I would like to do that too.”

In Brazil funding from the national authority is hard to come by, although it paid for him to go to the Youth Worlds last year and he won the trials to compete at the Finn Gold Cup this year. But there is no shortage of top role models within Brazilian Olympic sailing and two of the greats have already helped him. “This year and last year at the Delta Lloyd Regatta I was in the same bungalow as Robert [Scheidt] and with Torben [Grael], my father was friends with him. So I talk a lot with him and I have got some things about racing and about the life from him.”

The path to this year’s Finn Gold Cup for 18-year-old American Caleb Paine also came from the Lasers, but the significant difference was that he was ‘the chosen one’. Recently the US arm of the Finn class has bought a Finn to try and get a youth development program off the ground. Paine is the first recipient of this leg up.

“It was just my size and sailing Lasers had really helped me a lot - I’d showed I was a decent Laser sailor,” says Paine of how he got the opportunity. “The [US] Finn class then approached me and asked me if I would sail a Finn. So that was pretty cool.”

Paine admits that he hasn’t won anything of great significance in the Laser but has frequently come second at major events such as the North American Youth Championship. “There was another guy, Luke Lawrence, who has been my competition the whole time in the Laser, but he decided to stay in the Laser. He is a little smaller than I am and he is doing really really well at that. So I decided to do this!”

The deal includes a heavily discounted charter of the US class’ Finn to use as and when he wants. “And it is really cool, because all the guys [the US Finn sailors] have been really really supportive, they have given me sails and things like that.”

The logistics of Finn sailing at Olympic level within a country as large as the US also has its own problems. Paine heralds from San Diego in southern California, while most west coast Finn sailing takes place up in Long Beach, Newport. However the most serious Olympic Finn contenders, such as Zach Railey and Brian Boyd, sail out of Florida. “Hopefully this next year I am going to go to Florida a lot where I will train with them. My whole philosophy is that if you hang around the best in the world, then hopefully some of it will wear off, even if you aren’t trying for it to.”

Like Zarif, Paine has Olympic aspirations, most probably for 2016 rather than 2012, and the Finn is better suited to his size than the Laser. Meanwhile he too is working on getting his weight up to the ideal Finn fighting weight of around 95kg and so at present he prefers it when conditions are light.

“This is like my fourth month in the boat, so I can’t really handle it in the breeze, I am not really fit enough, but it is good to experience it and learn what every one else is doing and it all goes to a better cause.”

Young Finn sailors are currently gearing up for their Junior Finn World Championship, know as the Finn Silver Cup, to be held on Lake Balaton, Hungary in early August. At present 45 are registered to take part.

Meanwhile here in Denmark consistent American Zach Railey leads at the end of day two, eight points ahead of the UK's Giles Scott. However tomorrow when the discard kicks in after race five, New Zealand's currently fourth placed Dan Slater could well take over the top spot.

Results after Day 2: