Rooster Topper World Championships at Le cercle nautique de Loctudy - Day 3
by Michelle Hill, ITCA 27 Jul 2017 16:06 BST
24-28 July 2017
Sponsored by Rooster Sailing
Wednesday morning arrived quickly for the sailors as the last battle for prime positions in the final grouping commenced. A dull ominous sky gave the first indication that the weather may not be as glorious as the first two days.
With another start time of 2pm, wind conditions started at approximately 10-12 knots for the first couple of starts of the day. However, as the day progressed the wind steadily increased to around 15 knots and with it came the drizzle and a drop in temperature.
Decreasing visibility added an extra layer of complication to the racing but this was handled competently by the race team and overall, three very good races were run with conditions remaining similar across all parts of the course today with most of the shiftiness of yesterday's racing not repeating.
Ultimately with the tide being slack or only in slight flow, it quickly became a game of tactics between the boats.
Today was the last day of qualification for the sailors with the fleets being split into yellow, silver and bronze for six championship races over Thursday and Friday. Isabel Wallwork remains in pole position on 29 points closely followed by Angus Kemp on 31 points and 33 points for Rob Keal was in third.
Overall, the qualifying in the 5.3 fleet has been extremely close, resulting in many changes in the overall standings on a daily basis making for a very exciting event.
The 4.2 fleet also had a challenging day with only 2 races being completed due to decreased visibility and a high wind strength. The sailing started well with similar conditions to the 5.3 course, but with the wind coming more off the land today, the sailors had more shifts than usual to deal with and combined with the increased windspeed, a few more capsizes than normal were inevitable.
These were handled admirably by the young sailors and after the two races, the final leaderboard remained unchanged with Sean Woodard still dominating the fleet with Ben Purrier in second and Xinran keeping the third slot.
Everything still is to play for in the following two days.
Full results are here: 5.3 fleet [PDF] and 4.2 fleet [PDF]