Marathon day turns painful

The 49er Yellow fleet is the only one to race at the ISAF Sailing Worlds in Santandar

It should have been a marathon race day on day four of the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Santander, with some 35 races across eight classes scheduled. But with painfully light and unsettled winds, instead just two races for one half of the 49er line-up were possible, leaving a hot and frustrating wait for the remainder of the fleets.

The 470, 49er, 49erFX, Finn, Nacra 17 and RS:X fleets were all scheduled for racing early on in the day with the Laser (silver and bronze fleets) and Laser Radial (silver fleet) set to join in later in the afternoon.

It was a frustrating day for the Race Committees who attempted several starts but a combination of wind shifts and a strong current made things exceedingly hard with only the 49ers getting racing away.

Despite light winds it was a glorious day for residents who enjoyed a local bank holiday and were able to pay the championship venue a visit. A spectator Dune has been purpose built for the Santander 2014 ISAF Worlds and will be used for many years to come for rowing and sailing events. Throughout the day thousands of spectators paid the Dune a visit with thousands more expected as the event unfolds.

49er

The 49er fleet had some really tough qualifying conditions on their first race day. The wind did not co-operate. As Ireland's 49er coach Ian Barker reported: "It was a maximum of 5 knots out there."

With the world's best skiff sailors competing and only 25 boats of the 80 registered making it to gold fleet, it was always going to be a tough test. The races were short and sharp which meant the starts and lane holding were vital.

Only yellow fleet managed to get races in with veterans Nico Delle Karth and Niko Resch (AUT) taking the overnight lead after two fifth place finishes. There are not too many other favourites up in the top 10 right now, as most of the fleet could only manage a single good race out of the two. Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen (AUS) managed to salvage the day with a good come back in the first race moving from deep up the first beat to a 16th followed with a fourth in the second race.

Probably the most interesting news of the day are which teams have taken poor starts to the event and are at risk of missing gold fleet. Jonas Warrer and Anders Thomsen (DEN) had a 33 and 11 placing them well down the pack while Manu Dyen and Stephane Christidis (FRA) had a UFD and a 10. All three of these top teams face unlikely odds now of making the gold fleet, though they'll surely give it a try.

British pair Dave Evans and Ed Powys were happy with their steady start amid their unpreferred light wind conditions, posting 7,14 for their opening day’s efforts. The world number-six ranked duo have claimed podium finishes at the EUROSAF circuit regattas of Sail for Gold and Kiel Week this year, and are hoping to consolidate these with a strong showing at the World Championships.

“We’ve had ups and downs this year. We’ve had some really good regattas and we have all our good kit out for this event,” Evans explained. “Once the breeze is up and we’re out onto the wires we’re confident, and the lighter breeze is always something we’ve worked on, so it’s nice to have come out of this first day without too big a score.”

“It’s like sitting in a sauna trying to play chess!” described Evans of the hot, light wind racing at the Spanish venue today. “It gets pretty hot and sweaty, but it’s good that the whole fleet opens up and every boat is going to go the same speed in those kind of conditions. If someone makes a good tactical call then they’ll win. It’s anyone’s race and a lot more open in the lighter breeze.

“It was light, it was going to be quite tidal and tricky conditions with a big fleet so for us today was about not getting any big scores, I think it was the sort of day where people could have come in and said it could have been ten [places] better or ten worse, so we had a solid start and nothing big and silly so that’s a happy start for us.”

Nic Asher and Fynn Sterritt had the second best day of the British contenders in the 49er yellow fleet, following up a big first race score of 30 with a second in the subsequent race, while Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign will be hoping to bounce back from a bad start to their World Championship campaign when they resume racing tomorrow.

The European silver medallists were adjudged to have false-started in the first race of the regatta, and went on to post a 20th in their second race.

“It wasn’t our brightest hour out there,” Sign admitted. “We started out with an OCS and you’re always on the back foot then trying not to force anything when you’re starting the next time. You try and give yourself the opportunity to get off the startline and it proves quite tricky.

“Hopefully we can turn things around for the next one. We’ll be taking the next races as they come. It’s definitely not over yet. We’ve just got to try and get into gold fleet, keep doing what we know we have done in the past very well. We’re still heads up and pushing on.”

The blue fleet sailors were lucky on the day to avoid racing in the light winds. Typically qualifying races are conducted at the same time to avoid some fleets being exposed to different conditions that other fleets, but that is not the case here at the multiclass worlds.

Although the other classes were released out onto their course areas, racing proved impossible for the 49er blue fleet, the RS:X Men and Women’s windsurfers, 470 Men and Women, the 49erFX, Finn and Nacra 17 sailors, leaving regatta organisers again playing catch up for Tuesday’s fifth day of competition, and likely to be aiming for an earlier start time than the original 1300.