Cadet Nationals at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy - Day 3
by Peter Collyer 12 Aug 2014 07:36 BST
9-12 August 2014
'Awesome' and 'epic' are words that are often overused today, but both can be applied to a frantic Day 3 of the Cadet Nationals at WPNSA. 2 races were run at the very top of the wind range for junior sailing, and such were the attritional demands of the day that only 25 boats out of a fleet of 70 managed to score in both.
Having had to cancel racing on Day 2, the Race Officer brought forward racing by an hour, so by 9.30am the Gold and Silver fleets were launching into a solid Force 5 breeze. Undaunted by heavy gusts and a building sea inside the harbour, plenty of the competitors flew spinnakers on the long run down to the committee boat.
Race 4 got away at the first attempt and after an arduous beat it was AUS9616 Thomas/Sophie Alexander who appeared at the windward mark with a huge lead in this, their first race since arriving in the UK for next week's Worlds. Behind them the gybe mark claimed a large proportion of the fleet including home favourites GBR8352 Lucy/Cally Terkelsen. By the finish AUS9616 had increased their lead while Argentinian visitors ARG9472 Nahuel Ponce/Lucas Pruden had shown their heavy weather skills to finish 2nd and GBR8541 Alex Warrington/Anna Wootton had continued their solid series with 3rd.
A long delay between races to allow the Royal Navy to practice three-point turns in the harbour added to the demands on the stamina of the sailors, and when Race 5 finally got under way it was into a 25-30 knot breeze that had swung further to the west. Once again AUS9616 appeared to be revelling in the conditions and already had an unassailable lead by the first mark. As gusts of 35 knots were recorded and the forecast strengthening breeze took hold the Race Officer took the wise decision to finish racing at the top of the second beat allowing those still on the course to sail straight back to marina as a third race now looked out of the question. AUS9616 took the win and behind them series leaders BEL8520 Cesar Smet/Emile Mariem consolidated their position with 2nd while top British boat GBR8521 Alex Page/Aaron Chadwick took 3rd.
Back ashore exhausted sailors compared tales of the great adventure they had experienced sailing in such extreme conditions. The forecast for Day 4 promises more of the same, in which case your correspondent may well have run out of suitable adjectives.
Full results at www.cadetclass.org.uk/sitedata/Entries/2014_nationals_results.pdf