NZL Sailing Team crack into the top 10 on Day 2 of the Princesa Sofia Regatta
by Michael Brown/Yachting NZ 6 Apr 2022 15:46 BST
5 April 2022
49erFX - Alex Maloney and Olivia Hobbs (NZL)- Day 2 - Trofeo Princesa Sofia - April 2022 © Sailing Energy
The full fleet of more than 1000 sailors came out to play on the second day of the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma and a handful of New Zealand boats emerged in the top 10 after another punishing day of strong winds and cold temperatures.
Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie are the best placed of the Kiwis, sitting in fifth after the first day of 49er action, and Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson are sixth in the Nacra 17, Tom Saunders ninth in the ILCA 7 (Laser) and Veerle ten Have 10th in the women's iQFoil.
But the points are extremely tight in many fleets. In the ILCA 7, for example, only 25 points separate the top 30 boats and points can rack up fairly easily now that the top third of the fleet move into three days of gold fleet racing before the top 10 medal race.
George Gautrey was one of the big movers of the day in the ILCA 7, jumping 90 places to 18th on the back of a first and a second in his two races today. The Wellington sailor had a difficult opening day, battling around the course in the first race after breaking a kicker and then failing to finish the second when breaking his tiller extension.
"Thankfully today I managed to keep my moves clean, not make any big mistakes and avoid gear breakages and managed to sneak away with a one and a two," Gautrey said. "I did what I needed to do to get into gold fleet and another three days of racing. It should be pretty cool racing against everybody who I haven't raced against for a long time, so that's pretty exciting.
"Hopefully I can keep moving up the leaderboard. I made it pretty tough for myself starting off the regatta with a DNC and a 17 but there's plenty of racing to come and plenty of time for me to drag it back."
Saunders is handily placed in ninth but the world champion has not been overly happy with his performances so far despite adding a third and a fifth in his two races today.
"I just battled to get off the start line today so was left trying to chip my way through the fleet, which I managed to do reasonably well to get a couple of good scores," he said. "I just need to clean that up for tomorrow going into gold fleet.
"The points are close as always so I am still in good shape and looking forward to getting into gold fleet and seeing what I can do."
The 49er crews were looking forward to tangling with the international fleet again after an absence of a couple of years and McHardie and McKenzie posted two good results in their three races to leave them fifth overall. The fleet on the outer course were often in "survival mode" with strong winds and steep waves and McHardie and McKenzie were forced to pull out of their first race due to gear damage following a couple of capsizes, which they've dropped as their worst result.
Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn are only nine points off the lead in 19th and banked three top-10 results, which was an impressive return after a heavy crash in training left Dunning Beck nursing badly bruised ribs.
Wilkinson and Dawson also had their challenges with gear breakages in the top-end conditions for the Nacra 17 fleet but still managed to put themselves in a handy position with three more days of fleet racing before the top 10 medal race.
"It was a day of breakdowns and breakthroughs for us," Wilkinson said. "It was a pretty tough day. We had a differential rudder rake system failure in the first race which cost us a few points and then inexcusably snapped our mainsheet strop in the second. But our speed was good.
"On the bright side, downwind speed was a big weakness at the [Tokyo] Games so it's nice to see we've made a big jump there and we're ripping downhill nicely now. Overall a few disappointing moments but long term it's looking positive."
The windfoiling squad are also looking long term given the Princess Sofia Regatta is their first international regatta since the iQFoil was included on the programme for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Both the men's and women's fleets competed in a double points 40-minute marathon race to start their day before moving into two more fleet races.
Ten Have was third in the women's marathon race and backed that up with another top-10 result to climb into the top 10 overall after two days of racing.
Josh Armit was the best placed of the New Zealand men, moving up to 28th overall after a couple of top-10 results today as well.
Conditions are due to settle a little for the third day of racing after two days of strong and gusty winds and cold temperatures.
Results and standings after day 2 of the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma:
ILCA 7 (165 boats)
1st: Michael Beckett (GBR) (2) 1 1 2 - 4 points
2nd: Pavlos Contides (CYP) 1 1 2 (4) - 4 pts
3rd: Jean-Baptiste Bernaz (FRA) (3) 2 2 1 - 5 pts
9th: Tom Saunders (NZL) 4 (10) 3 5 - 12 pts
18th: George Gautrey (NZL) 17 (56 DNF) 1 2 - 20 pts
95th: Luke Deegan (NZL) 33 28 (36) 26 - 87 pts
97th: Luke Cashmore (NZL) 29 27 (36) 33 - 89 pts
ILCA 6 (89 boats)
1st: Sarah Douglas (CAN) 2 - (2) 1 1 1 - 3 pts
2nd: Maria Erdi (HUN) 1 1 (11) 5 - 7 pts
3rd: Maxime Jonker (NED) 1 6 (8) 2 - 9 pts
43rd: Olivia Christie (NZL) 10 (24) 22 23 - 55 pts
Men's iQFoil (111 boards)
1st: Luuc van Opzeeland (NED) 1 (8) (14) 5 0.5 0.5 3 2 - 12 pts
2nd: Andrew Brown (GBR) 4 2 1 (6) 1 1 3 (7) - 12 pts
3rd: Amado Vrieswijk (NED) 5 2 (16) (12) 1.5 1.5 1 1 - 12 pts
28th: Josh Armit (NZL) 13 (27) 17 17 9 9 10 (22) - 75 pts
52nd: Thomas Crook (NZL) 7 (52 DNF) 29 18 STP 51 NSC 51 NSC 24 8 - 137 pts
55th: Eli Liefting (NZL) 30 35 (52 DNC) 52 DNC 13.5 13.5 29 24 - 145 pts
93rd: Antonio Cozzolino (NZL) (52 DNC) 52 DNC 22 52 DNC 51 DNC 51 DNC 52 DNC 52 DNC - 282 pts
Women's iQFoil (74 boards)
1st: Helene Noesmoen (FRA) (17) 1 2 1 1 1 (14) 2 -85 pts
2nd: Shachar Reshef (ISR) (3) 3 1 3 10 (10) 3 1 - 21 pts
3rd: Islay Watson (GBR) 4 (22) (17) 5 5 5 1 5 - 25 pts
10th: Veerle ten Have (NZL) (21) 16 10 13 3 3 10 (46) - 55 pts
59th: Brianna Orams (NZL) (75 DNF) 59 54 55 40 40 (75 DNC) 75 (DNC) - 167 pts
49er (76 boats)
1st: Erwan Fischer / Clemen Pequin (FRA) (1) 1 1 - 2 pts
2nd: Jakob Meggendorfer / Andreas Spranger (GER) (4) 1 1 - 2 pts
3rd: Sebastien Schneiter / Arno de Planta (SUI) 2 (11) 2 - 4 pts
5th: Isaac McHardie / William McKenzie (NZL) (27 DNC) 4 2 - 6 pts
19th: Logan Dunning Beck / Oscar Gunn (NZL) (10) 2 9 - 11 pts
53rd: Sam Bacon / Henry Gautrey (NZL) (27) 16 21 - 37 pts
49erFX
1st: Odile van Aanholt / Anette Duetz (NED) (4) 1 2 - 3 pts
2nd: Martine Grael / Kahena Kunze (BRA) 2 1 (6) - 3 pts
3rd: Carlotta Omari Sveva Carraro (ITA) 1 4 (9) - 5 pts
21st: Alex Maloney / Olivia Hobbs (NZL) (14) 7 8 - 15 pts
Nacra 17 (38 boats)
1st: Ruggero Tita / Caterina Banti (ITA) (2) 1 1 - 2 pts
2nd: Gianluigi Ugolini / Maria Giubilei (ITA) 1 (4) 3 - 4 pts
3rd: Sinem Kurtbay / Akseli Keskinen (FIN) (3) 2 2 - 4 pts
6th: Micah Wilkinson / Erica Dawson (NZL) 6 (13) 6 - 12 pts
Full results www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/race-resultsall