Early leaders dominate

Paul Brotherton reports from the all important Gold and Silver fleet split day at the 470 World Championship

Best improver award goes to the race committee at the 470 Wolrds in San Fransisco. They produced just what the competitors want; rapid fire racing, one minute round the ends rule on the first start, then straight to a black flag. The on-the-water time compressed from eight hours on day 1 to a mere five hours today.

The dreaded cut sees all the GBR boats in the top group with the exception of John Gimson and David Steed who got black flag dsq in the final race today. They are currently filing a protest for redress but the chances of success are remote. Missing from the top table are the Americans. Michael Mitterling and David Hughes are the best US boat in 38th. The young team acted as tune up boat for Paul Forester and Kevin Burnham. Having been issued with sails, a rig and instructions to tune up with prior to Athens they used it well and won Keil week earlier this year. Apparently, since then, they have been experimenting with their own ideas.

As far as the outcome of these Worlds are concerned the Dutch Women and Australian Men continue to dominate. Both teams have sailed close to perfectly to this point and do not look to have any obvious frailty in the standard San Francisco conditions. However, pressure and tension can do strange things. There are no outward signs from either team that leading a difficult World Championship is playing on their minds. All four sailors appear relaxed, comfortable and confident in themselves and each other.

Tomorrow the first real change in the conditions will occur. The morning races will take place during the last of the ebb tide. This not only changes the strategy, it increases the chances of boats being OCS. The leaders may become reluctant to take it on at the start. Where they have been offered space by the flood tide to think, the ebb tide compresses thinking time and distance. The Men have the added change of sailing in the Gold and Silver fleets, this rarely results in more space on the line for the golden ones. Spaces are filled by lots of boats and points can rack up quickly.

The "lets not loose it" mentality can easily take over from the "lets win it" mind set. British sailors are poised well in both fleets to take advantage of any wobbles. Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark continued their great start. In both races the Team GBR duo didn't start well but stuck at it and made the small gains count. A boat passed on a hoist, inside at the mark, spot on the laylines, all these small skills perfected in training count on days like today where passing lanes are tight and only open up briefly. Two fourths where their reward and keeps the pressure on the Dutch and them firmly in the game.

The score sheet for the men looks clear tonight, the pure statistics would have you believe that the winner is clear. History tells us however that a thirteen point lead can be swallowed up in two races. Having sat and watched the British lads sail off into the distance in Athens the Aussies may just start glancing in the rear view mirror as the finals start tomorrow.

Results:

Pos-Nationality Helm/Crew, Points

Men

1-AUS Nathan Wilmot and Malcom Page, 6
2-FRA Gildas Phillipe and Nicolas Leberre, 15
3-GBR Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield, 19
4-POR Alvaro Marinho and Miguel Nunes, 22
5-GBR Nic Asher and Elliot Willis, 22

Women

1-NED Marcelien de Koning and Lobke Berkhout, 8
2-GBR Christina Bassadone and Saskia Clark, 16
3-CZE Lenka Smidova and Elizabeth Kratzig, 18
4-FRA Ingrid Petitjean Nadege Doroux, 26
5-ISR Nike Komecki Vered Bouskilla, 28