Close racing between the British and the Australians
Strong winds and driftwood on the race course made it a challenging second day of racing in Barcelona. The wind speed went up from 12 to 17 knots from the NE, and there were a lot of waves today. The fleet of 42 boats from 23 nations completed three races on the second day. With a total of six races the teams can now discard their worst result.
British Saxton and Groves are still at the top of the leading board. However, after scoring a sixth, fifth and twelfth, they have lost the six-point cushion they had after yesterday’s races. Darren Bundock and Nina Curtis are second overall after a total of six races (of which one discard race) with the same amount of points. They finished second, third and seventh today, and are now in front of Spaniards Fernando Echavarri and Tara Pacheco, who have fallen down to fourth place.
The French team of Franck Cammas and Sophie de Turckheim complete the provisional podium. After discarding a twenty sixth place from the first day and finishing eighth, twelfth and second today – after being overtaken in the last downwind leg by the Italians Bissaro and Sicouri – the French have climbed five places in the overall and are now third, six points ahead of the Spaniards.
Echavarri and Pacheco have been one of the teams affected by the logs on the race course. “In the second race we were leading the race – explained the Tornado’s Olympic champion in Beijing – but eleven boats overtook us because we were fighting with a log in the water. Now we have to check that the daggerboard is not damaged.”
Half the fleet has to check their daggerboard profiles and rudder blades because of the logs. The Danish team Allan Norregaard and Annette Viborg finished third in the first race but were not happy about the rest of the races: “It wasn’t a good day. We had some damage because of the logs, but we will have the boat fixed for tomorrow”.
For the Danish the Europeans here in Barcelona is the first of three events selected for representative for the Olympic Games in Rio, Norregaard and Viborg, now seventh overall, go for gold: “The feeling is good, but it’s not going to be easy since both Annette Viborg and I, as well as Lin Ea Cenholt and Christian Peter Lübeck have a good change to perform well”.
Italians Vittorio Bissaro and Silvia Sicouri had the same problems, although the skipper wanted to highlight the fun part of it: “Like everyone else, we had the problem of the logs. We had to be very careful in the water to see them. Because of the logs four or five boats capsized. But it was fun at the same time”. The Italian team scored a first in the final race of the day, which allowed them to climb on the leader board and are now standing on ninth place.
Canadians Luke Ramsay and Nikole Girke, won the first race today. Just before the finish of the second race they capsized and broke their rudder. They tried to fix it on the water, and hoped to be ready in time for the start of race 3. Unfortunately the race started just a bit too early for them, but it will be fixed before tomorrow.