RS Feva World Championships in Santander - Day 4
by Golly Tucker 29 Jul 2016 09:02 BST
28 July 2016
Gilt-edged day after a 'not so promising' start in Santander. The sun and thermal breeze arrived late but turned out for a glorious day on the water. Race 2 of the final series (first race of Thursday) was set off in a very gently building 7-9kts and by the start time it was up to 10kts but then just as it looked likely to build just a little more it began easing off for the third and fourth races.
The locals said "ah, this is more like the usual weather for late July!" – well they said it in Spanish and then someone translated for us...
The results on the whole look like the sand dunes of the Lost Quarter of the Arabian desert. Everywhere you look it is up and down, nothing steady and everything shifting. William Pank/Finlay Dickinson from Norwich School are taking a big lead into the final day but even they have already used their discard. So with a possible three races to go it really is still anyone's game. Freddie Peters/Louis Johnson are second and have no lives left having to discard a black flag in the last race of Thursday.
The current battle for the final podium slot rages a little distance behind and has Oscar Andersson/Ragnar Alfredsson (SWE) in it with a 2 point advantage over Eli Leifting/Rose Dickson (NZL) who in turn have 3 points over local hero's Pablo Fernandez/Laureano Sacines (ESP). The Dutch family Dutilh had an extraordinary final race to Thursday with both their boys boats black flagged but Gijs/Ocker Stoop are still in 9th whilst Tom/Moos Stoop are 23rd.
With the current Gold fleet leaders also still being juniors the Junior title has a fair chance of also going William Pank/Finlay Dickinson's way. They can't rest on their laurels however with the second Junior Joshua Davies/Blake Tudor lurking in 8th. Whilst Mattia Zinetti/Davide Carbonelli lead the ITA entries it is their Junior colleagues Arturo Beltrano/Jacopo Meneghetti closed to prizes as current 4th Junior not far from 3rd Blake Wilson/Sam Dickinson.
The ladies title is very tight at present with only 1pt separating Alice Edmunds/Issy Spurway from Lauren Barnes/Julia Paton and another 6pts away Ellen Morley/Sophie Johnson.
In the Silver Fleet the Soldano family (ARG) has been a model of consistency after their qualifying series. Current 2nd and 3rd have only a point in it and are Forasacco Nicolo/Drago Stefano (ITA) and Sian Talbot/ Eloise Clason-MacBride. The rest of the top 10 are packed with HKG, NED and GBR.
Patrick/Conor Whelan are the current runaway Bronze leaders but the rest of the leading gang are tightly packed. The current order has Maltese Alexander Bartoli/Nick Bonello Ghio ahead of Megan Ferry/Emilie Gregory (apologies for getting your club wrong in the results, we are on the case and hope it will indeed read the Royal Malta Yacht Club by tonight!). But then from Sylvie/Rohan Stannage (AUS) in 4th to Ballio Alessandro/Fei Giovanni in 8th there are only 2pts! Tight!
Results so far