Rock dodging

Day one of the Contender Worlds saw some damage out in Kingston

Today, Tuesday, was the first day of the 2008 Contender World Championships. The fleet was ready after measuring in and sailing the Canadian Nationals for two days in the nice South Westerly's that make Kingston famous. The fleet at this event consists of members from eight nations with ages ranging from 20 to the early 70s. Can you imagine jumping under a Contender boom at 70+ years of age? Gil Woolley can and is proving himself an amazing athlete.

Sailing out on the Foxtrot course, several competitors can't resist taking shortcuts through the rocks by Snake Island - some great damage of rudders and centreboards continue. More to come I am sure.

Race 1

The forecast for today was wind for the North. This makes for a crapshoot with the wind moving easily 30 degrees and varying pressure from around five to 12 knots throughout the course.

The fleet started right on time at 12:30 and about half the fleet went left as the wind made its first of many shifts to the left. Some sailors including Christoph Homeier and Soren Andreasen who had both been on the right hand side tacked over and were above most of the fleet. Marcus Hamilton (current world champ) and a few others were just five seconds late reacting to the shift and were quickly left behind.

The group on the right hand side of the course had less wind and were not able to make up the ground. Soren came first around the top mark with Christoph and a young new star, Max from Germany, close behind. At the bottom mark these three boats went round almost at the same time. Soren tacked first, Christoph and Max followed shortly after the mark. During the beat, Christoph had a good tour to the right side and managed to pass Soren on the downwind. On the next upwind there were quite a few changes due to the shifts but in the end Christoph took the bullet.

Race 2

For the second race the wind had picked up slightly and was a bit more stable than in the race one.

The first around the top mark was Bart Thorborg from Holland followed by Marcus Hamilton and Soren Andreasen. On the first reach Marcus passed Bart and both Soren and old favourite Joachim Harpprecht (aka Shappy - creator of the Musto Skiff) passed him on the second reach.

It was a close rounding at the bottom mark, with Christoph, Soren and Sappy all rounding within three seconds. The leaders were in the same position at the top mark and nothing really changed on the downwind except that Shappy went too far right and was overtaken by Bart again. On the last upwind Soren managed to pass Marcus but a major windshift right before the finishline gave Marcus a nice header and he managed to win the race with Soren just a few boat lengths behind him.

Results:

1-DEN44 - ANDREASEN, SOREN, 4 points
2-GER53 - BRANDT, OLIVER, 8 points
3-GER551 - HOMEIER, CHRISTOPH, 10 points