Damage limitation

Andy Rice focusses on today's 49er action in Athens

Four years ago in Sydney, Finland wrapped up the Olympic Gold medal in the 49er class with a race to spare. Just past the half-way mark in Athens and there is no sign of anyone walking off with this regatta. It remains anybody’s game.

With very similar conditions to the previous day - a light to medium sea breeze - none of the 19 teams has established any sort of pattern. Random shifts are catching even the best teams out, and the Germans who were leading this regatta two days ago had another shocker today to be lying in 12th overall.

Joint leaders of the regatta are now the Spanish World Champions, Iker Martinez and Xabier Fernandez, along with the Ukraine’s Rodion Luka and George Leonchuk. But these teams have little breathing room on the rest of the fleet, with just six points separating the first six places.

They often say in Olympic racing that it is not how good your good races are, but about minimizing the damage of your bad ones. The Japanese team of Kenji Nakamura and Masato Takaki are a case in point, scoring 19,4,2 today, virtually identical to yesterday’s scores of OCS,4,2. The only difference today was that instead of being disqualified for being over the line they capsized on a gybe-set manoeuvre at the windward mark. This ranks as a schoolboy error in the moderate breezes of the Saronic Gulf, and one that could cost them dear in the final analysis next Thursday.

Another example of inconsistent sailing comes from the Aussies, the only team yet to have won two heats and yet still only lying in 8th, thanks to their shocking scores from the previous day. They head a second tier of teams where only six points separates 8th to 15th place overall.

This is truly nailbiting stuff, and you can see why the 49er fleet needs 16 races to sift the wheat from the chaff, compared with the 11-race series of other fleets. The fact is, there isn’t any chaff in this fleet where finishing first in one race is no guarantee that you won’t finish last in the next.

At least the teams have finally caught up with their race schedule once more, and for the first time in many days they can take a well-earned day off to get their heads back together. Some teams will also be hoping that 48 hours will be enough time to clear out these fickle sea breezes and bring a different type of challenge when they return to the race track this Sunday.