Qualification series ends for fleet racers

The electrical storms of yesterday have passed and in their wake was plenty of stable breeze for the athletes competing at the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships. The NZL Sailing Team has had a long and tiring day, with three races for every competitor in the fleet racing.

Photo: Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders leading the 470 fleet downwind. Photo by Ocean Images.

Of the five classes racing this week, New Zealand has boats in the top ten of three classes. Tomorrow, the fleet racing classes will be split into Gold or Silver fleets based on their qualifying results.

Again Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders had the top kiwi performance of the day, finishing their second race in the 470 class at the front of the pack in third place.

They have consistently been in the top ten for this whole regatta, except for one race today where they got caught on the wrong side of a shifting breeze and lost approximately ten places on the last leg. Fortunately, the one bad race for Paul and Jason has been dropped from the score board because five races have been completed, and the boys have held their overall standing of fifth place.

In the Bathers Bay Centre Course, Steffanie Williams had a fantastic day, finishing all three races in the top ten, and jumped up in the overall rankings to 19th overall. Spectators on the grandstands had a up close view of Natalia Kosinska battling on the race course with fellow New Zealander Justina Sellers in the other Women's RS:X grouping.

The women’s Laser Radial fleet also saw some close competition between New Zealanders, Sara Winther and Miranda Powrie. Miranda led the first race of the day for the first two legs and finished with a solid sixth, her best result of the regatta so far. Sara turned around from a challenging first race and had two competitive races in strong winds, finishing both in the top eight.

The Men’s 470 and Finn class were scheduled to have a lay day tomorrow, however due to yesterday’s cancellation, they will have one race each. The Women’s RS:X and Radial are scheduled for three races tomorrow.

The women’s match racing crew of Stephanie Hazard, Susannah Pyatt and Jenna Hansen will resume racing to hopefully complete their first round robin tomorrow.

New Zealand has made the gold fleet in every class racing this week.

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships
New Zealand’s Current Standings

470 Men
5th - Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders (1, 9, 17, 3, 8)
61st - Luke Stevenson and Sam Bullock (34, 25, 22, 30, 33)
64th - James Turner and Matthew Jones (37, 31, 30, 33, 21)
71st - Mike Snow-Hansen and Derek Snow (24, 35, 39, 39, 34)
74th - Gareth Moore and Ben Goodwin (35, 35, 37, 34, 41DNF)

Laser Radial
9th - Sara Winther (7, 6, 22, 8, 5)
32nd - Miranda Powrie (26, 33, 6, 15, 10)
53rd - Rachel Basevi (3, 42, 23, 27, 34)

Finn
19th -Dan Slater (5, 11, 37BFD, 9, 12)
30th -Matt Coutts (15, 15, 10, 13, 15)
53rd - Nik Burfoot (26, 25, 37DNF, 18, 22)
57th - Brad Douglas (24, 26, 37BFD, 28, 24)
69th - Rob Coutts (35, 34, 29, 28, 32)

RS:X Womens
19th - Steff Williams (26, 21, 7, 10, 6)
42nd -Natalia Kosinska (6, 24, 22, 23, 20)
49th - Justina Sellers (16, 22, 20, 26, 24)

Womens Match Racing
Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt
7 Wins, 2 Loss

About this event
The Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships feature the world’s best sailors in all ten Olympic classes from over 80 nations. Over 1200 Sailors will take part, contending for country qualification for the 2012 Olympic Games, and the World Championship titles.

The event officially opened on December 3rd with the start of the Women’s Match Racing and this class will race for the duration of the event, due to the round-robin format of match racing. All other classes will have seven days of racing that conclude with a double point medal race for the top ten.

The first week of racing (December 5 – 11) will feature the Women’s RS:X windsurfer, Women’s single person dinghy class Laser Radial, Men’s double handed class 470 and the Men’s one person dinghy heavy, the Finn class.

The second week of racing (December 12-18) will have all other classes compete, the Men’s RS:X Windsurfer, Men’s single person dinghy class Laser, Women’s double handed class 470, Men’s Skiff 49er. The Men’s Star class keelboat will race December 11-17

Visit the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships for results, tracking, live updates, and much more news from on and off the water. www.perth2011.com

A daily TV programme of approximately 25 minutes will also be available online www.sailing.org/tv

‘Like’ the NZL Sailing Team on Facebook for the news and results as they happen.