On the rampaige

Paige Railey extends at the European Laser Radial Championship in Denmark

First day of the Gold Fleet Finals in the European Laser Radial Championship in Denmark, and it was a tough day for nearly everyone. There have been massive changes on the leaderboard in Charlottelund, the only constant being the regatta leader, Paige Railey.

Going into today’s Finals racing, the American held the lead by a slender point. But her closest rivals - Sarah Steyaert of France and Charlotte Dobson of Great Britain - suffered two bad races. Steyaert, the reigning World Champion, fell foul of the black flag rule for breaking the start in the first race, and followed up with a 24th in the next. This has relegated her to 10th overall.

Now an impressive 17.5 points ahead, Railey’s new closest rivals are Tina Mihelic of Croatia who won her third race of the week today, followed by Norway’s Cathrine Gjerpen, who is currently far exceeding her pre-regatta hopes of scoring inside the top 15 in this high-quality 96-boat fleet.

The first attempted race of the day lasted for almost an hour and a half before the race committee put the sailors out of their go-slow misery. The four different Radial fleets (two women, two men’s divisions, totalling 166 competitors) were barely making progress against the current. Evi van Acker of Belgium was the early leader in the Gold Fleet, but was nowhere to be seen at the second windward mark. None of the early top 10 managed to stay there, as some of the backmarkers found different breeze to move into the front of the pack. Abandoning the race was a wise move.

After moving the race course much closer to Skovshoved Harbour, the race committee found much better breeze in which to hold the two heats, with the sailors now enjoying moderate conditions that gusted up to 12 knots.

Tina Mihelic won the first race, while some of the other leading contenders were having a shocker. Railey was one of them. While the boats that went right towards the shore were having a lovely time, Railey kept on looking for alternatives. Asked what she learned from today, she said: “Bang the right corner. Current was such a big difference. I didn’t think it would matter that much and I kept digging away to the left and it just didn’t work. I started getting a little annoyed. I was so far behind anyway I thought, what can I do? So I’ve finally had a bad one, but it is only one bad race from the eight we’ve done, so I’ll wipe it away from my memory and move on.”

After that harsh lesson in the first race, the fleet was much more clued into the right side of the course. After finishing 3rd from the back of the 48-boat Gold Fleet in the first heat, Railey came 3rd from the front this time. Another American Sarah Lihan led for much of the race until she was given a penalty by the Jury for excessive kinetics on the final run, but she held on for 4th across the line, very close behind Railey. “I had a really, really ugly first race,” said Lihan. “But I was frustrated enough that it fuelled my anger for the second race. There seemed to be a lot less current on the right so I just decided to start at the boat, and tacked. And it worked!”

Marit Bouwmeester had one good one, one bad one, which she agreed was not the right way round to do it. Better to get your bad one out the way early, but she scored 6th followed by a 38. “Yeah, you have a better feeling on the shore,” she laughed ruefully. Still, the Dutch sailor is still in 8th place, with points very close up to 2nd place overall.

Danish sailor Alberte Lindberg had great speed in the breezier conditions this afternoon to win the race, and she moves up to 12th overall. Second across the line this afternoon was Evi Van Acker, who was philosophical about her yo-yo performance this week. Today I continued my rhythm of good-bad-good-bad,” said the Belgian, who scored 28,2. The 28th should have been a lot better, said Van Acker. “I had a really good start at the pin end, I crossed the fleet, but tacked too soon by 100m and lost 25 boats just like that. Very difficult sailing. It’s going to make it interesting for tomorrow. Almost everyone has had a bad race now.”

Even Railey is not immune. The 45th from today’s early race hangs over her, and her apparently comfortable lead is really not as comfortable as it appears. In the Men’s fleet, Zemke Wojciech of Poland continues to string together successive race wins to lead comfortably from Michail Aristeidis of Greece.

The Laser Radial Europeans is one of a number of high profile sailing regattas taking place in Denmark this summer as part of wider festival of different sports, called Denmark’s Year of Sport. To do their utmost to ensure that their events are held to the highest possible standards the Danish Sailing Association is working with the support of the insurance company CODAN (part of Sun Alliance Group), to provide TracTrac tracking during the Laser Radial Europeans, Finn Gold Cup, EUROSAF Match Racing Europeans and 470 World Championship. The Danish Sailing Association has purchased 150 state-of-the-art GPS tracking devices, allowing races to be followed in real time over the internet.

Last year the TracTrac tracking of the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship in Aarhus, Denmark was followed by nearly 30,000 viewers from 69 countries all over the world.

Gold fleet results

Pos	Name	Nat	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	F1	F2	Tot	Net
1	Railey Paige	USA	6	4	3	3	2	10	-45	3	76	31
2	Mihelic Tina	CRO	-17	17.0 DPI	1	10.5	1	9	1	9	65.5	48.5
3	Gjerpen Cathrine	NOR	1	-17	10	11	3	10	3	17	72	55
4	Drozdovskaya Tatiana	BLR	9	5	-32	4	3	5	4	26	88	56
5	Multala Sari	FIN	1	4	16	2	4	-24	17	13	81	57
6	Dobson Charlotte	GBR	3	2	6	4	11	4	30	-34	94	60
7	Olsson Josefin	SWE	11	17	2	15	5	-43	5	5	103	60
8	Bouwmeester Marit	NED	5	3	16	1	25	5	6	-38	99	61
9	Winther Sara	NZL	7	24	2	5	16	(49.0 BFD)	2	7	112	63
10	Steyaert Sarah	FRA	2	1	1	6	21	9	(49.0 OCS)	24	113	64
11	Van Acker Evi	BEL	11	1	17	3	4	27	-28	2	93	65
12	Lindberg Alberte	DEN	9	11	7	-20	18	8	11	1	85	65
13	Reyes Lucia	ESP	2	14	4	2	16	-23	19	8	88	65
14	Schütt Maiken	DEN	12	6	12	6	19	3	10	-22	90	68
15	Cebrian Alicia	ESP	4	2	26	7	(49.0 BFD)	7	8	19	122	73
16	King Gabrielle	AUS	5	15	5	-25	2	18	22	12	104	79
17	Deberny Katarzyna	POL	3	5	21	12	-27	2	21	16	107	80
18	Reyes Fatima	ESP	4	21	20	9.5	1	3	24	-33	115.5	82.5
19	Fenclova Veronika	CZE	12	19	6	-22	8	6	15	20	108	86
20	Goltz Franziska	GER	10	14	31	5	5	7	-34	15	121	87
21	Clapcich Francesca	ITA	21	7	15	9.5	11	1	-42	25	131.5	89.5
22	Brewster Andrea	GBR	6	9	15	8	8	13	31	-32	122	90
23	Makowska Ewa	POL	8	31	3	14	7	1	37	-41	142	101
24	Tenkanen Tuula	FIN	26	13	8	7	24	6	20	-39	143	104
25	Edelman Nufar	ISR	15	6	4	14	22	-37	14	30	142	105
26	Young Alison	GBR	17	20	19	12	18	-29	7	18	140	111
27	Hall Cathrine	DEN	25	12	32	18	6	8	12	-35	148	113
28	de Turckheim Sophie	FRA	(49.0 BFD)	16	14	1	49.0 BFD	2	27	6	164	115
29	Snellgrove Hannah	GBR	22	8	5	16	32	14	-46	21	164	118
30	Blom Claire	NED	7	8	-35	13	26	32	9	27	157	122
31	Gallego Duran Marina	ESP	19	24	8	23	7	27	25	-48	181	133
32	Helbig Anke	GER	14	-27	11	26	25	18	26	14	161	134
33	Lihan Sarah	USA	(49.0 BFD)	13	30	13	12	28	35	4	184	135
34	Dennis Claire	USA	-29	28	20	16	9	16	23	23	164	135
35	Gunni Sarah	DEN	28	19	13	10.5	(49.0 DNS)	24	13	28	184.5	135.5
36	Kravarioti Virginia	GRE	10	18	25	9	(49.0 BFD)	19	44	11	185	136
37	Fasselt Lisa	GER	8	12	-36	15	22	15	29	36	173	137
38	Murphy Annalise	IRL	32	10	31	8	21	28	(49.0 OCS)	10	189	140
39	Weinzieher Anna	POL	15	15	27	20	17	30	16	-45	185	140
40	Hanna Debbie	IRL	16	23	22	19	28	4	-38	29	179	141
41	Haeger Anne	USA	21	22	9	31	6	13	41	-46	189	143
42	Bassadone Christina	GBR	(49.0 BFD)	10	18	27	10	12	43	40	209	160
43	Sigvardsdotter Sara	SWE	13	27	12	28	9	39	33	-42	203	161
44	Tylinska Katarzyna	POL	23	18	17	17	-38	23	36	31	203	165
45	Maes Laura	BEL	18	22	28	17	20	(49.0 DSQ)	18	43	215	166
46	Szymczyk Natalia	POL	20	9	33	21	20	37	32	-44	216	172
47	Mileviciute Ausra	LTU	26	16	37	28	15	11	39	-47	219	172
48	Billing Emily	USA	16	-41	38	23	15	12	40	37	222	181