All on for young and old

San Francisco delivers a test for 29er World Championship fleet

San Francisco Bay was full of drama yesterday as the qualifying rounds of the 29er World Championships were completed in increasingly windy conditions.

Eight races have now been sailed in the four coloured fleets: red, blue, yellow, green. Racing was halted in the blue and yellow fleets as every boat had capsized.

The day started with what appeared to be the consistent wind conditions experienced by the sailors at the Championships but by 3pm it was well into the 24 knot range and teams were having problems at the windward mark and also at the gybe point on the run.

The biggest casualty of the final day of racing was the British team of Justin Visser and Simon Wheeler who scored an OCS on the seventh race which crashed them down to 15th in the qualifying scores overall. One discard is taken into account and for Visser and Wheeler this was a DNF in race two.

However it is another British team that has topped the qualifying table; Dylan Fletcher and Nick Hollis in the red fleet. They have notched up a string of very consistent results – their discard is an 11th in race seven.

Australia now takes second and third spot with Chritharis and Jarvin, and Bonnitcha and McNicol respectively. Pre-worlds favourites David O’Conner and Scott Babbage are in seventh position but not too far off the pace.

It has been Cameron Biehl and Zack Maxam who have taken up the running for the host nation with local boys John Heineken and Scott Babbage one place further back in sixth.

The finals start on Friday and continue through to Sunday.

Results at end of qualifing:

1 GBR 10, Dylan Fletcher, Nick Hollis, red 2 6 3 2 1 3 *11 4, 21
2 AUS 863, Will Critharis, Seve Jarvin, blue 9 *DNF 4 1 2 1 3 10, 30
3 AUS 718, Jacqui Bonnitcha, Euan McNicol, yellow 4 1 2 3 *DNF 13 1 7, 31
4 GBR 6, Ed Chapman, Tom Peel, blue 1 2 8 5 *15 3 13 1, 33
5 USA 19, Cameron Biehl, Zack Maxam, red 3 1 12 *21 6 4 5 2, 33
6 USA 529, John Heineken, Matt Noble, green 3 2 7 10 *14 6 1 6, 35
7 AUS 3, David O'Connor, Scott Babbage, green 2 3 1 12 *15 12 3 5, 38
8 AUS 769, Jamie Woods, Iain Jensen, yellow 4 4 11 3 1 2 *18 17, 42
9 ARG 433, Francisco Piccini, Daniel Pierrard, blue *29 7 11 5 9 4 5 5, 46
10 USA 522, Jen Morgan, Anthony Boscolo, yellow 9 5 16 7 2 *21 9 2, 50
11 GBR 1041, Huw Humphreys, Max Todd, red *19 5 5 8 4 10 10 11, 53
12 ARG 4, Pepe Bettini Caspar Buettner ARG yellow 7 9 *22 7 10 2 8 11 54
13 DEN 12, Helle Nielsen, Simon Jensen, green *14 12 5 10 4 9 9 7, 56
14 DEN 682 Jesper Hoeg Mathias Aggerbo, red 13 18 *24 4 6 9 4 3, 57
15 GBR 5, Justin Visser, Simon Wheeler, green 1 *DNF 1 1 3 1 OCS 12, 59