Poland lead

David Campbell-James reports from the Optimist Europeans in Sandhamn

The second day of the Optimist Open European Championships in Sandhamn, Sweden saw very light shifty conditions with a maximum of 6 knots.

Three races were scheduled but only one was completed. The fleet are divided into a girls group and a boys group. Both are flighted with two starts per race. In the girls second start they only just managed to finish inside the time limit of 90 minutes and the last beat was horrible.

Best result of the day for the British was Patrick Metcalfe who got 10th in his race. Amelia Garnett found herself in the late 20s at the first mark and found a nice patch of wind on the last beat to end up 12th in her race. The other girls were in the second girls race and whilst together throughout the race Hannah Diamond finished 28th but poor Imogen Stanley got caught in a hole in the last few minutes to finish 37th.

The youngsters in the team - James Peters and Phil Sparks finished within sight of one another in 32nd and 34th respectively. Matthew Rainback managed to get a 41st. There are 168 boys competing and 100 girls.

The organisers sensibly sent the fleet home after one race with the forecast of more wind tomorrow, though it will not be the strong winds that the other British sailor David de Boltz would like. He suffered today from a bad start and never recovered.

The Polish seem to have sussed out the conditions as they are leading both fleets.

Overall

Boys
1st POL
2nd SWE
3rd PER
Brits 35 Phiol Sparks, 47 Pat Metcalfe, 48 James Peters, 60 Matt Rainback, 86 David de Boltz

Girls
1st POL
2nd GRE
3rd USA
Brits 46 Amelia Garnett, 65 Imogen Stanley, 72nd Hannah Diamond