Two more light days

The third and fourth days of the 18ft Skiff Europeans saw more light conditions in France

Seven races over the last two days have tested all the teams, both physically and mentally with breeze varying from six to 12 knots, and temperatures on the beach nearing the mid 30s.

Tuesday's racing started promptly, surprising a few teams who started late. Yandoo Sanyong made the most of this with the first race win of their series, while Ronstan put in another consistent result in second to keep them well up the overall leaderboard. Investec Private Bank (Mason Woodworth, GBR) finally showed some of their pre-season form by finishing third.

The next three races were sailed in challenging shifty breezes with most of the crews powered up and three wiring in the six to ten knots. SLAM (AUS) put in the best show across those races with two firsts and a fourth taking them into the lead overall. Yandoo Sanyong consolidated their second overall with a consistent fifth, third and fourth. The only other teams to post any sort of consistency were Wild Oats Chardonnay (USA) with a third, second and sixth and Pindar (GBR) with a sixth, seventh and third. Most of the rest of the teams vying for the top half of the leaderboard took some heavy scores trying to make their way through the maze of shifts during the day.

Wednesday looked much more promising on the breeze front, and the race committee wisely had chosen to use the lay day to catch up on the race schedule lost early in the week. Pindar came to the fore in the 12-14 knot breeze having found exactly the right settings and tactics to pick their way through the fleet and dominate the days proceedings with rwo firsts and a second, with only SLAM coming close to matching that consistency with a second, seventh and fourth. PICA (GBR) looked to have found their form as well with initially a fourth and a second, however, a tenth place in the final race of the day slowed their progress up the leaderboard. GP Covers (DEN) finally showed some of the previous years pace in the heavier breeze by taking the final race win however an eighth and a sixth earlier in the day kept them in mid table overall.

So going into day five, the leaderboard has closed up considerably with five teams within eight points of each other after ten races in total. With another 12 races potentially over the next three days its all to play for.

Results:

1st SLAM (AUS) 26pts
2nd Yandoo Sangyong (AUS) 26pts
3rd Pindar (GBR) 30pts
4th Wild Oats Chardonnay (USA) 31pts
5th Ronstan (GBR) 34pts
6th TMF (GBR) 40 pts
7th PICA (GBR) 46pts
8th GP Covers (DEN) 47 pts
9th Bodotex (DEN) 60pts
10th Gill Wet and Wild (GBR) 65pts