Fireball Worlds final day

Chips Howarth finishes off his diary, plus final results

The final day of the World Championships dawned with a steaming hot day and a light 8-10 knot wind. Ours was a nervy boat sailing out to the start as although we had a good lead, Dave Wade & Richard Wagstaff didn't need to finish a race that day and were still unlikley to loose 2nd place. It was their job the sail us down for the whole day.

In the first race we hung a good 25 boat lengths back from the line until 1 minute 30 secs from the gun and sailed a timed run to the pin end of the line. This left Wade & Wagstaff little opportunity to nail us, we were safe on the line transit and made a clean start. Half way up the first beat we forced Wade & Wagstaff onto port (I think there was another match race going on at a similar time in New Zealand!!).

We managed to round the windard mark in approx 12th position, but most importantly, ahead of the bad guys!!

We sailed a steady race from then on, putting on a great spurt on the final run by gybing into new breeze, this pulled us up to 5th at the finish, giving us the World Championship with a race to spare.

We elected to miss the last race to load the container and hit the pool-side bar.

The prize giving was great with the Minister for Tourism for Kenya and all the sponsors present, with the ceremony going out on all Kenyan television stations that evening.

Kilifi is a great place to race and I hope the Kenyan Sailing Federation can use this regatta as a springboard to expand the sport in this beautiful country.

Chips

Overall Results, 10 races sailed, 2 discards

		Helm	Crew	Total	Discard	Final
1	GBR	Chips Howarth	Vyv Townend	90	78	12
2	GBR	Dave Wade	Richard Wagstaff	82	51	31
3	GBR	Vincent Horey	Jim Turner	84	48	36
4	GBR	Paul Cullen	Gavin Tillson	77	30	47
5	FRA	Franck Juin	Bertrand Loyal	84	36	48
6	FRA	Frederic Mouches	Jean-Francois Nouel	88	36	52
8	GBR	Angus Hemmings	Steve Chesney	136	78	58
7	SUI	Kurt Venhoda	Sonja Zaugg	115	56	59
9	IRL	Shane McCarthy	Phil McCusker	137	78	59
10	GBR	Jeremy Davy	Norman Byrd	99	30	69
11	GBR	Penny Gibbs	Ian Gibbs	108	37	71
12	GBR	Malcolm Davies	Fiona Jump	150	78	72
13	GBR	Andy Pearce	Rachel Keeling	162	78	84
14	KEN	John Trundell	Peter Hime	127	33	94
15	GBR	Derian Chandler	Andy Scott	155	44	111
16	GBR	Alex Bale	Jonathon Bale	175	62	113
17	GBR	Phil Popple	Doug Shore	195	78	117
18	GBR	Edwin Sadd	Steve Kuhl	167	47	120
19	IRL	Philip Lawton	Markham Nolan	192	55	137
20	GBR	David Mason	Sam Pascoe	202	64	138
21	GBR	Ian Harrison	David Broome	200	61	139
22	FRA	Pierre-Jean Gallo	Pierre-Yves Robin	195	48	147
23	KEN	Ben Schulz	Nigel Shaw	223	61	162
24	GBR	Elaine Tudor	Warren Tudor	225	61	164
25	KEN	Don White	Rob Allport	227	54	173
26	KEN	Simon Woods	Alastair Bush	244	69	175
27	GBR	Martin Scarth	Nigel Sheppard	251	72	179
28	IRL	Louis Smyth	Shane Mugan	262	68	194
29	KEN	Joachim Bebbington	Roger Bebbington	260	63	197
30	SUI	Adrian Huber	Brigitte Mauchle	284	78	206
31	KEN	Chris Shaw	Alex Hurn	285	76	209
32	GBR	Keryn Henwood-Fox	Gary Henwood-Fox	282	64	218
33	KEN	Omar Mbithi	Steven Ogada	303	78	225
34	KEN	Graham Bush	Harriet Bush	318	75	243
35	IRL	Francis Rowan	Ed Butler	316	72	244
36	GBR	Barrie Winship	Rose Winship	335	78	257
36	KEN	Graham Alder	Taryn Childs	329	72	257