Group 4 Securicor 9er Championships at Weymouth - Day 2
by Lindsey Bell, RYA 26 Jul 2006 09:27 BST
22-29 July 2006
Light winds shake up day two of 9er Championships
It's all change at the top of the leaderboards on day two of the Group 4 Securicor 9er Championships at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, with racing again hampered by light winds.
After a promising start to Tuesday's racing, the schedule was upset once more when the 10-11 knots which greeted sailors for the scheduled start time of 1100hrs at this combined 29er World Championship/49er European Championship decreased throughout the course of the afternoon.
Half of the 94-boat 49er fleet managed to sail a fifth race, with the other half confined to shore with the prospect of an earlier 1000hrs start looming for Wednesday.
British 49er World Champions and defending European titleholders Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks are in second place, with just four races counting for all boats at the end of day two. The Skandia Team GBR pairing couldn't quite match their perfect regatta start from Monday, where they posted two race wins, but are still firmly in the running with a 3,6 to show for Tuesday.
"We didn't have the best of days," said Draper, sailing in the yellow flight which started racing when the wind was disappearing for the day. "We weren't starting all that well, and in these conditions, when everyone's sailing the right and you don't get a great start it's quite hard to pick up places through the fleet."
The Italian Sibello brothers, Pietro and Gianfranco take over the top spot, with a 1,3,1 from their first three races on Tuesday to add to a third from their one and only race on Monday. The blue flight in which the Italians sailed also squeezed in a fifth race, with the brothers' first place from that race coming in to play on Wednesday when all 49er flights have caught up to five races.
Denmark's Jonas Warrer and Martin Kirketerp are in third overall, in equal points with Ukraine's Rodion Luka and George Leonchuk, while Skandia Team GBR's Paul Campbell James and Mark Asquith, after posting 12,11 on Monday, had a perfect scoreline from the second day, crossing first in races three and four on Tuesday.
Finland currently occupy the top two berths of the 105-boat 29er World Championship table, with Mikko Hentinen and Miika Pennanen in the lead on seven points, and top female helm Silja Lehtinen with Australian Scott Babbage close behind on eight points.
Sailing in the green flight, Lehtinen and Babbage notched up two race wins in races three and four, and another from race five still to count tomorrow, as not all 29er flights managed to get a fifth race in today. However, at press time the regatta jury are considering whether to throw out race four for Lehtinen's green 29er flight, as the wind reportedly dropped to less than four knots for over five minutes during that race.
Overnight leaders and British national champions Paul Brotherton and Mari Shepherd are currently in third, but will be in the frame once again tomorrow as they still have a first to count from race five, and then have a discard to play with.
British youth national champions Dylan Fletcher and Rob Partridge are just off the overall podium positions in fourth.
The Group 4 Securicor 9er Championships is run in association with the RYA, the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy and the 29er and 49er Class Associations, and is supported by UK Sport's World Class Events Programme.
Racing runs through to Saturday 29 July. For full results and information, visit www.9erchamps2006.com