Michael Bullot's statement of intent

Laser World Championships underway at Hayling Island

The strong tidal current and light and at times very shifty breeze proved to be the principal challenges on the first day of the Laser World Championships off Hayling Island.

For those sailors who had spent the preceding days, or – for some – weeks, learning the venue’s nuances and idiosyncrasies it was intelligence gained about the tidal current which was of immediate value.

Racing Day 1 broke the pattern of blustery winds and intermittent rain which have prevailed through the pre-championships training phase, replaced absolutely on cue by blue skies, summer sunshine and light to moderate mainly northerly breezes.

New Zealand’s Michael Bullot, runner-up at last year’s World Championship in Halifax, Nova Scotia made the strongest start across the two testing opening races by posting a second and a first in the first of four days of scheduled Qualifying heats.

His early statement of intent saw the Aucklander ashore this afternoon with a lead of one point over Skandia Team GBR’s Paul Goodison, the Olympic and defending World Champion who opened his regatta with third place and then won his second heat by a comfortable distance.

The shifting directions of the wind, oscillating through as much as 30 degrees at times in the Standard fleet’s first race set the early test, but a big 50 degrees swing early in of the second contest, kept the racers and the race team on their toes; the second and third starts were delayed until the breeze settled.

According to Goodison patience was his key virtue through both races, waiting until changes in the breeze were sufficiently established enough to make a considered move, rather than falling to the temptation to try and benefit from every small change.

“The first race started off in a really shifty breeze, up to 12 knots but it dropped back to five or six knots with some big swings in the wind," said Goodison. "I think it was a bit of a patience game waiting for the wind to come back. It can be too easy to go chasing things, but the wind usually came back and so that was a bit of a patience game.

"The second race got super light just before the start but at the gun there was probably 10-11 knots, that dropped to about 4-5 knots, but there was nearly a knot of tide and so it was very important to stay inside the laylines with that much of tide running. Quite a lot of the fleet got outside the port tack layline which meant them reaching in and pushing tide and that hurt them quite a lot.

“We had three great weeks of breeze at Sail for Gold and for the two weeks since, and so here today it has been nice to remember how to do it in the light winds.

"After Sail for Gold I did three days here and then arrived her last week and have been sailing most days since then.”


And with up to a knot of current running and the direction of flow progressively changing - flowing to the NW at the start of Race 1 and moving to the NE - tactical decisions were a movable feast, rich with opportunities to make gains and losses.

Australia’s double world champion Tom Slingsby, who arrived late Saturday at Hayling Island fresh from winning the Etchells World Championships in Howth, Ireland with America’s Cup legend John Bertrand, showed no sign of rustiness when he won his first heat, but he admitted to trying to break from the pack’s conventional thinking on the first downwind of the second race - his error dropped him four boats to score an eighth.

Among those finishing their first day with results which were well ahead of their expectations were Nicholas Heiner who won the first heat for the Yellow fleet, the biggest senior triumph yet for the young Dutch sailor who seeks to emulate or better the record of his 1996 Finn Olympic bronze medallist father Roy, while Estonia’s Karl-Martin Rammo paired up a third and first to match the first day 4 points tally of Goodison.

In the Junior World Championships Italy’s Francesco Marrai leads the 118 boat fleet after posting a second and third.

Photos from Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR