Volvo 49er, 49erFX, Nacra 17 European Championship 2019 - Day 6: GBR team report
by British Sailing Team Media 18 May 2019 19:28 BST
13-19 May 2019
Stu Bithell on day 6 of the Volvo Nacra 17, 49er and 49er FX European Championship © Drew Malcolm
The Headlines:
- Late start, light winds for penultimate day of European Championship
- Battle for podium places intensifies as regatta reaches business end
- Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell (49er) move up to second in bid for 49er victory
- James Peters and Fynn Sterritt (49er) post trio of top results, up to fourth
- Ben Saxton and Nikki Boniface (Nacra 17) continue ascent up table; 2, 1, 2 moves them into 2nd
- John Gimson and Anna Burnet (Nacra 17) maintain third overall; six points split top three
- Tough day for Charlotte Dobson and Saskia Tidey (49erFX) - a 27, 13 drops them to seventh
- Valiant late charge from Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth (49erFX) proves too little too late; they miss medal race in fourteenth
- 49ers will contest one more fleet race to complete final series tomorrow
- Live broadcast continues tomorrow from 11am at www.britishsailingteam.com
- Medal racing for top ten in each fleet starts at 3pm
What They Said:
Charlotte Dobson, 33, Rhu, Scotland (49erFX):
"Today was a bit of a disappointing day for us really, we didn't get into the racing quick enough and in a fleet like this you can't get away with that. It's a shame because we had good wheels in the light stuff, something we worked really hard on over the winter. It's disappointing not to be able to show that off but we'll have an opportunity to do it at another regatta."
James Peters, 26, Hayling Island, Hants (49er):
"We didn't have the stunning qualification or early final series that the top three had, and we've been chipping away waiting for them to make a mistake. Today they did. We've closed the gap, we're obviously improving and there's no reason in our minds why we can't continue that tomorrow. We had a tough start to the year but today was the day we got ourselves back in the game, and we feel we have a really good chance of winning a medal here."
Dylan Fletcher, 31, Thames Ditton, Surrey (49er):
"Day six of this marathon Europeans and it was a bit of a tricky one. We didn't think we'd had a very good day but as it turns out we've moved up into second. We're actually further away from the gold though so that's a bit disappointing. There's still one fleet race and a medal race left so hopefully we'll go out tomorrow and come back European champions."