Percy and Simpson surge away

Second wave of classes take to the water at Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships

Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships entered its second phase today as the 49er, Women’s 470, Men’s RS:X and Laser classes took to the water today off Fremantle, WA. They were greeted by strong southeasterlies of up to 22 knots, heavy showers, thunder and lightning.

49er

Denmark’s Beijing Gold medallist Jonas Warrer and Soeren Hansen and New Zealanders Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are the joint overall leaders after the opening day of racing.

Warrer and Hansen comfortably finished first in race one on Monday for the Yellow fleet by 85 seconds from Denmark’s Peter Andersen and Nicolai Thorsell, who placed second.

Skandia Team GBR's John Pink and Rick Peacock dominated in race two, but only managed to finish six seconds ahead of another Danish team - Emil Toft Nielsen and Simon Toft Nielsen.

Germany's Tobias Schadewaldt and Hannes Baumann took out the third race, only just beating Burling and Tuke, while Pink and Peacock finished a disappointing 16th after their win in the previous race.

“The first two races were really good until the boat capsized. That delayed us,” Peacock said. “It took us a while to get the boat back up. After that mishap, we bounced back. Overall, I'm impressed with how we raced.”

In the Blue fleet, Britain's David Evans and Edward Powys led for most of race one, finishing first by 13 seconds ahead of Ireland's Matt McGovern and Ryan Seaton.

France's Stephane Christidis and Manu Dyen won race 2, while Germany's Erik Heil and Thomas Ploessel were second.

World number one Aussies, Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, finally showed some of their best to win the last Blue fleet race of the day. In this France's Noe Delpech and Julien Dortoli were second. The Australians are tenth overall.
For Skandia Team GBR’s sailors, after three races, Dave Evans and Ed Powys are poised in eighth, John Pink and Rick Peacock ninth and Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign 13th after two good opening races followed by a tough third outing.

There is concern, however, for Ben Rhodes who sustained an agonising back injury during the second race of the day, and made what his helmsman Morrison described as a “Herculean effort” to finish the day’s scheduled racing. Rhodes received physio treatment on the water between the second and third races before returning further treatment post racing. The pair’s ability to continue these Championships will be determined on Tuesday.

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Women’s 470

Japan’s Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata finished the day in first place overall followed closely by former World Champions Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout with Britain's Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes rounding out the top three.

The Japanese sailors were the big movers, giving stellar performances in both races. Race one saw them come from 14th around the first mark to finish third, only 14 seconds behind Russia's Natalia Ivanova and Diana Krutskikh, who were second.

World number two Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes maintained a 200m lead throughout race one to finish comfortably two minutes ahead of the Russians.

“It was a really good day,” said Hughes. “[In the first race] we didn’t get cleanly off the start but managed to get out on to the right shifts, got the right side, got in at the windward mark, had the perfect first downwind and that was it after that. The second race was quite a tough one actually – it was a little bit frustrating as the wind was pretty shifty and patchy and we didn’t quite get the right side of it but it was good enough for a first day so we’re happy with that.”

Kondo and Tabata improved in race two, taking the lead at the start and holding it to the end. While Kondo and Tabata were the big movers, the big surprise was the USA's Erin Maxwell and Isabelle Kinsolving, who finishing 27th at the end of play today.

Already selected to go to London 2012, Skandia Team GBR’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark hold eighth after two races.
“We were really pleased with today,” said Mills. “We had some horrendous windward marks rounding today, especially in the first race – it was a lot easier counting the boats behind us at that point! But we’re always good at coming back through the fleet and we proved that again today so we’re really happy.”

Mills admits that their 2012 selection has affected their approach to these World Championships but is insistent that they still want to make their mark in the fleet at this event: “If we hadn’t been selected then this would have been another peak event for us this year but instead we’ve managed to get in a bit of downtime before properly building up for the Olympics next year.

“We haven’t quite done everything we would have like to have done before this event, but we felt it was much more important to have a bit of time off to make sure we were properly ready for next year rather than make sure we were ready for this.

“But it’s a World Championship at the end of the day and we want to do the best we can, and we’ll go out there and try to win.”

Top 20 results

Laser

The three-time Laser champion and 2010 ISAF Rolex Sailor of the Year, Australia's Tom Slingsby, swamped the field in the opening race of the day, but made an uncharacteristic error in the second to finish sixth with the mistake costing him top spot on the leaderboard.

Slingsby has seven points after the first day of Laser racing, one behind Blue fleet’s Jesper Stalheim from Sweden. “I guess it was my fault, I should have looked where the top mark was,” he said. “I tacked off the line, went for a few minutes, then tacked back and was over-laid by a long way, hundreds of metres. I rounded in the high teens or low twenties and was able to pull to six. All in all I didn’t have a drop today and that was the goal, I’m in the hunt.”

Slingsby was 35 seconds clear of Poland's Kacper Zieminski in race one with Sweden’s Rasmus Myrgren a further 30 seconds back. Australia’s Ashley Brunning finished the day with two fourths to put him equal third overall.

Poland’s Karol Porozynsky scored a fifth and a second to lead the Red fleet with seven points from Germany’s Simon Grodeluschen on eight points with a seventh and a win.

The Yellow and Blue fleets raced in 13-16 knot winds while the Red fleet had consecutive races in the late afternoon with 17-22 knot winds under a leaden sky and frequent lightning flashes.

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Star

Another outstanding performance from the British Olympic Champions Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson consolidated their first place position in the overall standings after race four today. The Beijing gold medallist have a total of 16 points while the USA's Mark Mendelblatt and Brian Fatih are on 28 points, with Germany’s Robert Stanjek and Frithjof Kleen just behind them on 30.

“We had a good day today,” said Percy. “We weren’t going very well but we hung in and fought hard. My body’s a bit bruised and battered for it but we managed to get a couple of counters, so that’s good. It’s the first proper test for our new boat – there’s still a bit of work to do. We’re not in the top five or ten boats upwind for speed but we’re fighting hard and we’re quick downwind together as a partnership which I think is a real strength for us and we’re getting away with it at the moment. But we’ve got a lot of work to do and we can certainly make some big improvements in upwind speed over the winter. There’s a long way to go. We’re not super quick so confident would be going too far, but we’ll just keep battling to the end.”

In race three, Norwegians Eivind Melleby and Petter Morland Pedersen took first followed closely by Aimilios Papathanasiou and Antonios Tsotras of Greece.

The fight for third was close with Aimilios Papathanasiou and Antonios Tsotras of Greece just making it, putting Germany’s Johannes Babendererde and Timo Jacobs in fourth place.

The outcome of race four saw the Swedish pair Fredrik Loof and Max Salminen take first place followed by Brazil’s Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada. Third went to Ireland’s Peter O’Leary and David Burrows while British pair Percy and Simpson were fourth.

With six more races until the medal race the British are aware of the obstacles to come. “There is still a long way to go, we’re not super quick, so not confident we will get too far but we will keep battling to the end,” said Percy.

Women’s Match Racing

Racing remained close between teams competing in the stage two Round Robin with the competitors aiming to increase their standings before the end of the repechage round on Tuesday.

It was a good day for New Zealand’s Stephanie Hazard, with wins against Great Britain’s Lucy Macgregor and Finland’s Silija Lehtinen.

With the wind again proving to be fickle, the course was changed to a four lap configuration, meaning the races had to be broken up a bit with a gap between the first two and last two matches. Increasingly bad weather in the late afternoon forced the race committee to postpone the last two matches of Flight 74 until Tuesday.

At the end of Monday’s racing, the top teams in stage two were Skandia Team GBR's Luc Macgregor on 9 wins and 2 losses, with the two Australian teams close behind, both on 8 wins and 3 losses.

France’s Claire Leroy will go into quarterfinals in top spot after winning her two matches in the seeding matches held earlier in the day. The USA's Anna Tunnicliffe will be second in the Gold Group, followed by Russia's Ekaterina Skudina in third and the Netherlands' Mandy Mulder in fourth position.

Men’s RS:X

Israel’s Nimrod Mashich and Piotr Myszka of Poland share top spot on the leaderboard after the opening day of racing in the men’s RS:X.

Both are on three points with a win and a second after two races while favourite, the Netherland's Dorian van Rijsselberge and Poland's Przemyslaw Miarczynski behind them on overall points.

In race 1 of the yellow fleet, World number one Myszka was neck and neck with his compatriot Przemyslaw Miarczynski in the second upwind leg, but Miarczynski eventually had to settle for fourth. Beijing Gold medallist Tom Ashley from New Zealand, finished second after a tacking duel with Britain's Eliot Carney. Ultimately Carney placed third, ahead of his teammate Nick Dempsey, who despite sailing strongly mid-race, finished 8th.

The second yellow race was a success all round for the two top Polish sailors as Miarczynski shot to first place with Myszka in his wake. Veteran Joao Rodrigues, who came third, is hoping he can make London 2012 his sixth Olympic Games.

In the Blue fleet van Rijsselberge cemented his status as one to watch at these World Championships. In the final leg of the first race he took advantage of the light winds to move swiftly past world number two Israel's Nimrod Mashich to win. But he lost out to Mashich and Korea's Tae Hoon Lee in the blue fleet’s second race.

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