Unstable weather continues to complicate races

It was a frustrating day for many sailors in Perth today, with patches of big breeze and patches of glass throughout the race courses of the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships. The Mens’ RS:X and 49er were unable to complete all of the scheduled races today, but the Laser and women’s 470 classes are still on track.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke had only two of their three scheduled races in the 49er class after a long wait on shore in postponement, hoping the conditions would become stable enough for racing. Unfortunately, the Fremantle Doctor did not arrive today but racing proceeded despite the missed appointment.

“The first race was really shifty and we got quite far left, it wasn’t looking that great. We got a big left shift and gained heaps on the first downwind.” Peter explained how positions changed frequently during racing. “We were leading at the bottom mark”. They finished that race in third, and the next race in twelfth.

“In the second race we just finished on the back of about five boats, that race could have been an eighth very easily” Blair had the same reaction to the conditions. “It was a full snakes and ladders day”.

The Men’s RS:X fleet were only able to complete one race today. The first race was abandoned when the first men were within a few hundred meters of the finish, some sailors racing in a sea breeze and others in the offshore. When this race was eventually re-raced JP Tobin came out top kiwi with a sixth place finish, and Tom Ashley in twelfth.

At the half way milestone of their World Championships, Tom is now in fifth place overall and JP is not far behind on the points table in twelfth.

After a couple bad races yesterday, the Jo Aleh and Olivia Powire have picked up the slack on the 470 race course, and had two fantastic races today. They won the last race of the day, and are the first of the NZL Sailing Team to win a race in this second wave of the World Championships.

Over on the men’s Laser course, Andrew Murdoch had another two consistent races; all of his individual races so far have been within the top ten. Once racing finally got going for the men in this single handed class today, Andrew was out of the gates at full speed, finishing the first race in second place. Andrew now sits tenth overall.

Wednesday’s results were the final contributing races in the split tonight for who will be in the Gold/Silver/Bronze fleets in the next round of this regatta based on
their overall standings. All of the NZL Sailing Team members will be progressing to the gold fleets.

Thursday is a rest day for the Women’s 470 as they on track with the schedule; however the 49ers will have one race to make up the one lost race today. The men’s lasers are scheduled for two more races tomorrow, and three races for the Men’s RS:X

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships
New Zealand’s current standings

49er- 67 Teams
6th Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (5, 3, 2, 16, 6, 6, 3, 12)
31st Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski (34DNC, 13, 18, 17, 11, 5, 19, 29)
60th Chris Burgess and Rohan Swanson (26, 29, 34DNC, 22, 29, 30, 33, 24)

470 Women- 48 Teams
6th Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie (7, 4, 14, 25, 7, 1)
43rd Vicki Francis and Erica Dawson (32, 43, 43, 44, 44, 40)

Men’s Laser- 147 Competitors
10th Andrew Murdoch (6, 7, 7, 4, 2, 10)
21st Mike Bullot (12, 4, 2, 12, 19, 8)
22nd Sam Meech (12, 11, 4, 10, 50BFG, 3)
29th Andrew Maloney (17, 5, 2, 13, 39, 13)
28th Josh Junior (7, 3, 5, 32, 33, 7)
80th Tom Saunders (26, 35, 12, 50DNF, 15, 30)

RS:X Men’s- 89 Competitors
5th Tom Ashley (2, 7, 3, 2, 12)
12th JP Tobin (6, 4, 6, 10, 6)
55th Antonio Cozzolino (26, 32, 25, 33, 24)
83rd Carl Evans (38, 47DNF, 34, 38, 47OCS)

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) featured 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. NZ’s top two results were also personal bests for the campaigns, 8th overall for Paul Snow Hansen with Jason Saunders in the 470, and 10th overall for Sara Winther in the Laser Radial.

The sailors of week one, and the match racing girls, have qualified New Zealand in all five of the possible events so far.

The second week of racing (December 12-18) now hosts all other classes, the Men’s RS:X Windsurfer, Men’s single person dinghy class Laser, Women’s double handed class 470, Men’s Skiff 49er.

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, or follow@nzlsailingteam on twitter for news and results as they happen.