Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Dean Barker and Rod Davis lead NZ Match Racing Championships

[Source: RNZYS] Day one of the New Zealand Match Racing Championships saw competitors take to the water in some very trying conditions, for both the sailors and the race committee. Teams headed out onto the water, and with racing postponed to begin with , they w ere left to try and figure out the conditions on a day which anything was possible.

With a very gentle 3-4 knots in the morning, the breeze was coming out of the South West, and going North as the day went on. Teams had to contend with a strong tide and wind shifts of between 10–15 degrees, which meant that if the difficult conditions were read correctly, the crews were able to extend their lead or close the match right up. The day had some close races!!

The Race Committee managed to get five flights away, with skippers Dean Barker and Rod Davis leaving the course undefeated, whilst all other teams had mixed results. One close race saw Jess Smyth lead Adam Minoprio in a tight race around the course, going head to wind at the top mark, Jess managed to hold her lead and win the race by 10 seconds. Adrian Short, commented that the races were fairly close, but there were not many incidents or tricky situations. Laurie Jury was able to take a race off Ben Ainslee in a race which saw Jury extend to a lead of 22 seconds.

After 5 flights today took up a long and exhausting day today, the field is still wide open for teams to change their odds, and after the first round robin is completed (as scheduled for tomorrow) we might just a change in performance for some of these teams. The title is still up for anyone, and with the hope of a little more wind to start off with tomorrow, racing will be able to get underway as scheduled at 10am.

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