Black day for Robertson

At day one of the Yngling Women's World Championship

The first day of the Yngling World Championships in Santander, Spain started in light 5-7 knot breezes and heavy rain.

With four Olympic qualification places at stake, as well as being the team trials for many of the nations involved, the starts were always going to be aggressive, with a general recall before the fleet got cleanly away the second time.

Race one got underway after a general recall. It was Danish boat of Trine Palludan that got the best of the first beat rounding the top mark three boat lengths ahead of GER 261 with Ulrike Schuman at the helm. NZL 4 and NED 310 were next to round. These four boats were quickly followed by the pack with the top ISAF ranked boat of Dorte Jensen (DEN 199) leading the chase.

As the wind began to increase a little on the run it also started to turn shifty with boats losing out on the right hand side of the run. At the bottom mark it was the New Zealand boat of Sharon Ferris, Joanna White and Kylie Jameson who had made the most of the difficult conditions and had opened up a 10 boat length lead on DEN 195.

The positions of the top four boats didn't change during the last two legs and it was Sharon Ferris who held on to win from Palludan, just a boat length behind. SChumann and Jensen finished third and fourth respectively and the French team of Anne le Helley, Elodie LeSaffre and Marion Deplanq finished in fifth.

After a poor start and then getting caught up in the pack, Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson and team mates Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb, who had come to the Worlds having won the last regatta at Hyeres, struggled to recover in the spread out fleet and finished race one 34th.

Of the nations still trying to qualify for Athens, Canada came out on top, with CAN 24 finishing sixth, followed by the Dutch crew on NED 310 in seventh.

The second race took three general recalls before finally getting away under the black flag. Six boats were over identified as being OCS, among them Shirley Robertson. However at the bottom mark the wind died and the Race Committee decided to abandon the race. This won't help Robertson's team who following their black flag will be forbidden to take part in race two.

Robertson commented: "we made costly schoolboy errors today, starting poorly and not reading the clouds well. Perhaps also after the practice race when the tide was a winning factor, we were considering tide as a bigger influence than it was. It is a really tricky venue; waves, cliffs, tide, real weather - for sure its going to be high scoring, with only one discard were now relying on it."

The fleet waited for another hour in a constantly shifting and light breeze before all racing was abandoned for the day at 1600.

These Championships sees two new nations being represented for the first time ever. Teams from Colombia and Japan have made the trip to try and qualify for the Olympics and also to get a taste of Yngling sailing at its best.

Tomorrow sees two more races scheduled with the similar conditions forecast.

Results

1, Sharon Ferris/Joanna White/Kylie Jameson, NZL (1) 1 pt
2, Trine Palludan/Christina Otzen/Ida Hartvig, DEN (2) 2 pts
3, Ulrike Schuemann/Wibke Buelle/Winnie Lippert, GER (3) 3 pts
GBR
25, Dominica Lyndsey/Victoria Symmers/Annie Lush (25) 25 pts
34, Shirley Robertson/Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb (34) 34 pts