Christophe Favreau / www.christophefavreau.com

Another bullet for Truswell and Pascoe

War torn competition today at a breezy International 14 Worlds

Tuesday January 13th 2015, Author: Tracey Johnstone, Location: Australia

Britain’s Glen Truswell and Sam Pascoe turned misfortune into fortune, when they took on today’s extraordinary weather on Corio Bay to deliver a convincing win in Race 5, of the 2015 International 14 World Championship.

They tasted the fear of being beaten by the conditions and then the sweet flavour of success while their close rivals fell away with gear failure and wrong tactical calls.

In second across the line were Britain’s Andy and Tom Partington, while just 30 seconds behind in third were Australia’s Mark Krstic and Cameron McDonald.

As the boat yard at Royal Geelong Yacht Club filled up with casualties at the end of today’s racing, the war stories started to filter through about the drama and damage on the race course.

With an hour to go to the start of Race 5 heavy rain was being driven into shore by the strong north-easterly and the low cloud seemed to be all but blanketing the course area, but the 67-boat fleet slowly shuffled their boats towards the boat ramp.

Once on the course conditions varied greatly from eight knots at one end of the shortened course to 28 knots at the other. But, the visibility was sufficient to allow the race to go ahead on time.

On the start line defending World Champion Archie Massey and crew Harvey Hillary were at the pin end while Truswell and close rival, Ben McGrane and James Hughes, were closer to the committee boat end.

Truswell got a clean start. “The fast boys were all pressing the hammer down. It was pretty breezy, but we were holding station with Ben.

“As predicted none of us could see the windward mark. People started tacking and we thought, well, we need to cover our bases, so we tacked a minute or two after the first tackers. We sailed and sailed and sailed until eventually the windward mark became apparent. We had over-stood it massively. We were all reaching into the windward, really deep, really fast. We were a casualty there as we had gone too far,” Truswell said. They rounded the top mark in fourth place.

“The first reach was absolutely crazy. No one could fly a kite and with white sails we were doing crazy speeds. Our boat was just mental,” Truswell said. With no GPS on board it was hard to tell their speed, but others estimated they were travelling at over 20 knots. “The boat just goes and goes and the best way to survive is to let the dog run, which is what we did,” Truswell added.

At the wing mark they were in first place. They tried a white sail gybe only to then go end over end and down. They got back up, launched their kite, threw caution out and let their boat take them back into first place. “We weren’t fazed at this point as we knew the rest of the race was going to be a bit of a battleground and there would be casualties,” Truswell said.

Massey got to the gybe mark just behind Truswell and sailed fast around him, successfully setting a kite. But by the second time around the top mark and with Truswell close by troubles struck for Massey. He broke the starboard upper and lost their top batten.

“We then couldn’t carry kites. When we gybed we could put it up on port tack, but when we were on starboard gybe, which was the long one, we couldn’t carry a kite,” Massey said.

The breeze continued to build with the top mark boat recording at least one 30 knot gust while at the bottom mark there was only about 13 knots. Behind Truswell and Massey, the teams were struggling to manage the conditions. McGrane was the first to capsize at the top mark second time, then Devine/Furlong (AUS) and the Partingtons (GBR) followed.

“We put the kite up, but then hit a wave and pitch-poled. When we pulled the boat back up the mast was in two pieces,” McGrane said.
The clouds then started to lift, but there were still plenty of ‘sheep in the paddock’ with the north-easterly gusting 23 to 28 knots. Truswell kept up the lead, out in front all by himself. “Our boat, just the speed of it, was just crazy. The thing is just unstoppable.

“By the time we got to the next windward mark we were first by a margin. From there on we tried to look after the boat and not break it,” Truswell said.

By the finish line they were almost four minutes ahead of the Partingtons who sailed most of the course conservatively. “We were lucky not to have any damage. We lost our water bottle, my hat and a watch.

“This is the first time we have sailed in that kind of breeze for a long time. We raked the mast back quite a bit further and we went a lot faster,” Andy Partington said.

In the first place overall is Truswell/Pascoe (GBR) on four points after one drop. In second overall is McGrane/Hughes (GBR) on nine points. Provisionally in third place overall and with 16 points is Devine/Furlong (AUS) after they finished in fifth place today. On the overall point score that puts him in equal third with the Partingtons and Massey. On countback Devine keeps third and control of the Australian Championship title.

However, as the post-race party was getting warmed up and clouds clearing to a pleasant early evening, the first protest of the regatta was being heard. It’s between Devine and Richard Bone (GBR) with the outcome yet to be announced.

Luckily for many in the fleet tomorrow is a lay day. McGrane will spend a lot of the day busily replacing his broken mast with a spare and then setting up the new on in readiness for Race 6 on Thursday.

More photos from Christophe Favreau / www.christophefavreau.com

 

Results

Pos Nat Helm Crew R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 Net
1 GBR Glen Truswell Sam Pascoe 1 [2.0] 1 1 1 4
2 GBR Ben McGrane James Hughes 3 1 2 3 [68.0F] 9
3 AUS Brad Devine Ian Furlong 6 3 [7.0] 2 5 16
4 GBR Andy Partington Tom Partington 4 6 4 [13.0] 2 16
5 GBR Archie Massey Harvey Hillary 2 5 5 4 [8.0] 16
6 AUS Lindsay Irwin Andrew Perry [14.0] 4 6 5 4 19
7 GBR Richard Bone Chris Rodway 9 8 3 14 [68.0F] 34
8 AUS Mark Krstic Cameron Mc Donald 8 13 [18.0] 11 3 35
9 AUS David Hayter Trent Neighbour 7 [19.0] 8 15 7 37
10 AUS Stuart Sloss Ben Lawrie [22.0] 9 9 7 14 39
11 GER Georg Borkenstein Eike Dietrich 13 [23.0] 12 6 9 40
12 GBR Katie Nurton Nigel Ash 5 11 13 [17.0] 13 42
13 GBR Andy Fitzgerald Richard Dobson 10 7 23 8 [68.0F] 48
14 AUS Scott Cunningham Dave Parker [23.0] 10 10 18 15 53
15 AUS Ron Scherwinski James Lanati 17 12 14 12 [19.0] 55
16 AUS Roger Blasse Andrew Gilligan [33.0] 17 11 21 10 59
17 AUS Chris Vaughan Matt Balmer [26.0] 18 16 23 6 63
18 AUS Tony Carr Scott Cole 16 14 21 [68.0O] 16 67
19 AUS David Lugg Dave Bramley 20 20 19 10 [25.0] 69
20 AUS Graeme Everett Andrew Wilson [31.0] 22 20 9 21 72
21 AUS Dave Alexander Dan Wilsdon [68.0U] 26 17 20 11 74
22 AUS Cameron Elliott Sam Batt 25 21 22 [30.0] 17 85
23 USA Terence Gleeson Evan Sjostedt 11 24 [28.0] 25 28 88
24 AUS Anthony Anderson Mike Mcdonald [68.0U] 25 29 22 12 88
25 AUS Luke Devine Eike Ehrig 21 [32.0] 26 26 23 96
26 CAN Dan Cunningham Ian Struthers 12 34 27 24 [68.0C] 97
27 AUS Greg Coutts Jason Close 29 [36.0] 25 28 22 104
28 AUS Ian Arber Drew Farrar [38.0] 30 30 31 18 109
29 AUS Adam Syme Daniel Farthing 36 16 31 27 [68.0F] 110
30 GBR Charles Duchesne Tom Bracewell 41 28 [50.0] 19 24 112
31 GBR Julian Pearson David Edge 15 15 [68.0F] 16 68.0F 114
32 AUS Steve Vance Blake Vance [43.0] 35 24 39 20 118
33 AUS Ben Austin Peter Nicholson 30 45 15 35 [68.0F] 125
34 AUS Phil Vance Andrew Vance 35 31 [68.0F] 34 27 127
35 USA Ron Boehm John Gilmour 28 37 37 [42.0] 26 128
36 GBR Andrew Penman Chris Watson 24 40 32 41 [68.0F] 137
37 AUS Cameron Dale Adam Evans 27 44 34 36 [68.0F] 141
38 AUS Phillip Tomamichel Geoffrey Tomamichel 37 39 [68.0F] 37 29 142
39 AUS Ben Strong James Patterson 49 29 39 33 [68.0C] 150
40 CAN Lauren Laventure Jason Lemieux 18 47 42 44 [68.0F] 151
41 USA Chris Rutz Michael Radziejowski 19 54 41 38 [68.0C] 152
42 GER Bjoern Frasch Oliver Peter 32 27 [68.0F] 29 68.0F 156
43 AUS Nigel Smith Dane Stead 48 33 36 48 [68.0F] 165
44 AUS Tim Vance Greg Vance 44 41 35 45 [68.0C] 165
45 USA Kirk Twardowski Michael Lazzaro 39 38 45 51 [68.0C] 173
46 GBR Robin Pascal Martin Pascal 56 48 38 32 [68.0F] 174
47 AUS Scott Davis Daniel Vaughan 52 46 33 47 [68.0F] 178
48 AUS Stephen Edmunds Tom Edmunds 40 53 44 43 [68.0C] 180
49 AUS Sam Duncan John Warren 45 43 40 52 [68.0F] 180
50 GBR Colin Smith Imogen Smith 57 52 43 [59.0] 30 182
51 ITA Dominic Van Essen Simona Saccani 54 59 48 [60.0] 31 192
52 AUS Brec Mitton Peter Knispel 42 42 [68.0F] 46 68.0C 198
53 AUS Philip Strong Jeffre Klemm 62 50 47 40 [68.0F] 199
54 AUS Ian Cunningham David Cunningham 34 51 [68.0F] 55 68.0C 208
55 GER Julian Retzlaff Fabio Pfisterer 51 58 46 54 [68.0F] 209
56 AUS Christian Wangel Henrik Wangel 64 56 49 50 [68.0C] 219
57 AUS Robert Vickery Arron Vickery 46 55 [68.0F] 53 68.0C 222
58 AUS David McGeoch Bridget Mcgeoch 50 49 [68.0F] 58 68.0F 225
59 JPN Yasutaka Uto Satoshi Ishida 60 57 51 57 [68.0F] 225
60 AUS Jason Dixon Pat Agar 55 [68.0F] 68.0F 49 68.0C 240
61 AUS Marcel Bucek Scott Curtis 58 60 [68.0F] 56 68.0F 242
62 AUS Brian Long Frederic Papon 53 62 [68.0F] 62 68.0C 245
63 AUS Wayne Frankcombe Marcus Korobacz 47 [68.0F] 68.0S 68.0F 68.0C 251
64 AUS Richard Thomas Luke Thomas 61 63 [68.0F] 61 68.0C 253
65 AUS Takashi Furugaki Kenichi Hagiwara 65 61 [68.0F] 63 68.0C 257
66 AUS John Taylor Martyn Tribe 59 [68.0F] 68.0S 64 68.0C 259
67 AUS David Lorimer Freya Vickery 63 [68.0F] 68.0F 68.0C 68.0C 267

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