Light winds for Tiger Worlds

Paul Larsen reports from Singapore

The third Carlsberg Hobie Tiger world championships started today under somewhat typical equatorial conditions with light fickle breezes interrupted by heavy thundercloud activity.

Racing was postponed in the morning due to lack of breeze. The fact is that the previous week had great pressure. What is it with sailing regattas???

Despite there only being 34 entrants at the Raffles Marina venue, it remains that there are seven current and past world champions present. A few of us needing the practice went out early on to check that everything was as it should be and as racing was still postponed after lunch..... well, we went out again to be double sure.

Then at nearly four o'clock when we drifted back into the beach, sure that the day was going to be canned, we dropped our sails..... they in turn dropped the postponement flag, blew the horn and we were off again. It was still light but it had settled enough for a race to be carried out.

With a heavy port bias it was surprising to see so many boats crowding the boat end, maybe it was everyone being cautious and trying to protect their ability to tack away to clear air. Nonetheless at least one boat sailed into the back of the committee boat.

The fleet divided with the left side heading for better winds out in the channel dividing Singapore and Malaysia (don't go there as advised in the skippers briefing) and the other half heading to the right to avoid the current. The breeze favoured the right on the first work and Greg Thomas from the USA lead around the first mark of what was a windward, leeward, finish course.

The lead was hefty and despite gains from those of us who stayed out in the channel on the downwind, greg still lead at the bottom mark. The next work to the finish was a real lottery. Helena and I on Fly Royal Brunei were in the top ten and headed back out left into the channel that paid so well off the start. With the likes of Mitch Booth coming the same way on our hip we were confident it was going to pay again and looked like doing so for a while..... until the lottery commenced.

The windshifts began and after all the discussions over the lovely sponsors product at the bar debriefing it was hard to decide what was the key to the end results as for some it worked going left, for some right and for some just good ol' up the guts.

Enrique Figueroa and Jorge Hernandez from Puerto Rico triumphed over Dol Camille-Olivier from France and Greg Thomas managed after a rollercoaster race to salvage a third for the states. We on Fly Royal Brunei managed a 15th and were proud of ourselves for not getting the camera out as both Gav Colby and Mitch Booth crossed just behind. That was the nature of the first race.

Helm	Crew	Country	R1	Total
Enrique Figueroa	Jorge Hernandez	Aus	1	1
Dol Camille-Olivier	Francoise Boulaire	FRA	2	2
Greg Thomas	Jacques Bernier	USA	3	3
Steve Fields	Peter Dubbelaar	AUS	4	4
Darren Stower	Lloyd Bradshaw	AUS	5	5
John Bauldry	Karen Ann Xavier	USA	6	6
Keith Christensen	Curtis Christensen	USA	7	7
Aaron Worrall	Andrew Keag	AUS	9	9
Allan Lawrance	Gordon McGillivray	RSA	10	10
Mal Gray	Jerome Binder	AUS	11	11
Jeffrey Newsome	Tracy Nackel	USA	12	12
Pedro Colon	Jorge Torres	PUR	13	13
Eric Proust	Yann Andrillon	FRA	14	14
Paul Larsen	Helena Darvelid	AUS	15	15
Mark Haswell	Catherine Fong	PHI	16	16
Gavin Colby	Cori Camenish	SUI	17	17
Brad Sumner	Kevin Winchester	AUS	8	18
Mitch Booth	Taylor Booth	NED	18	18
David Bartlett	Jo Bartlett	GBR	19	19
Andreas Bredendiek	Nils Froehmer	GER	20	20
Darren Smith	Jesse Dobie	AUS	21	21
Tadeusz Winkowski	Pawel Jedrzejewski	POL	22	22
Fequet Loic	Julie Chouamier	FRA	23	23
Jeff Alter	Teri Mckenna	USA	24	24
Bob Schahinger	Kath Buchanan	AUS	25	25
Scott Lovig	Danny Hunt	AUS	26	26
Nigel Harris	Glen Ormerod	MAS	27	27
Murray Woodhead	Dean Parker	AUS	28	28
Steve Leo	Susan Korzeniewski	USA	29	29
David Heroux	John Swiniarski	USA	30	30
Brian Phipps	Phillipe Marian	HKG	31	31
Thompson Dale	David Tite	AUS	32	32
Mark Kopel	Thomas Sutherland	RSA		34

So that's it for race one, here's a pic. of the days victor enjoying a quiet drop on the minibus back to town and the infamous 'Ichiban sushi bar'
Stay tuned,
Paul Larsen (weird looking geezer below)