Brits dominate on sea breeze day

As the qualifying rounds of the CST Composites International 14 Worlds are decided on Sydney Harbour

British sailors took first place in both the final Qualifying Races today in Day 5 of the CST Composites International 14 World Championship.

Defending World Champion Archie Massey and his crew Dan Wilsdon recovered from their breakages yesterday and posted a solid win in race one today. They basically led all the way in a 8-12 knot sou'easter under sunny skies.

Massey and Wilsdon relished the light to moderate sea breeze and generally flat conditions on Sydney Harbour to record a comfortable win ahead of Australian Ron Scherwinski and his crew James Lanati with Lindsay Irwin and Andrew Perry third.

In race two, it was the British pair of former World Champion Robert Greenhalgh and fellow Volvo Ocean Race crewman Phil Harmer who cleared out early, but they were forced to work hard for their win by a pack of Australians chasing them. One of those was Ben Austin with crew Peter Nicholson who looked to be threatening, but they came unstuck at the first spinnaker hoist which ended in a capsize costing them nearly a dozen places.

South Australian Dave Alexander and his crew Cameron Mcdonald finshed second ahead of Britain's Tom Heywood and crew Ed Clay.

The first leg of today's windward-leeward course was 1.5 nautical miles long and Massey/Wilsdon went round in 71 minutes while Greenhalgh/Harmer were three minutes quicker in the afternoon race... perhaps due to a slightly stronger sea breeze of around 10-16 knots.

The Qualifying Series is now complete and Mark Krstic/Andrew Wilson finish on top of the points table with Massey/Wilsdon second, Andy and Tom Partington third, Greenhalgh/Harmer fourth and Roger Gilbert/Ben McGrane fifth.

More of Christophe Launay's images on the following pages...

Full results here: