Nick Craig extends his lead

Robert Deaves brings us the action from day two of the OK Worlds

Conditions once again proved tricky for day two of the OK Dinghy World Championship in Skælskør, Denmark with wins for Jonas Quist (SWE) and Nick Craig (GBR).

With another change in the weather, the fleet was greeted by warm sunshine and a light north-westerly wind from the direction of the Storebælt Bridge. The fleet got away first time with most sailors favouring the left hand side of the course where the stronger current and greater pressure allowed Nick Craig (GBR) to round first followed by Jonas Quist (SWE) and Jesper Petersen (DEN).

On the reaches Craig sailed low and was rolled by both Quist and Petersen, but these three broke away from the pack. On the next beat the pressure died even more to leave a very patchy and fitful wind. Oliver Gronholtz (GER) banged the right hand corner to lead briefly and at the next mark it was Quist followed by Gronholtz and Craig.

The final beat was even worse with barely enough wind to fill the sails. Quist extended his lead to win, but Craig just failed to overtake Gronholtz near to the line. Petersen sailed hard right and nearly got to the front, but just missed the bus.

Jonas Quist has returned to competitive sailing after nearly ten years doing other things. After following the Optimist, Europe, Laser route – and getting into the top five Lasers in Sweden – he turned to coaching, but is really enjoying sailing the OK, with this championship being only his third regatta in the class. He started with a “not very good” result at the first Swedish qualifier in April, returned to win the Nodic Championships in May and now has won a race at the World Championship. He says, “ My rig was a bit too stiff in the breeze today, as I have lost some weight since starting. However if the wind stays at around 4-6 metres per second, then I think I can do OK. I am happy with my downwind technique but am having some upwind boatspeed problems. Also I was having trouble getting a good start, and yesterday’s black flag did not help, but today was better. Otherwise I am pretty pleased with my perfromance so far.” Quite! Not bad after just six months in the class and not sailing competitively since 1996.

After a wait of over an hour for the wind to fill it the fleet started race four on a heavily port biased line that made the pin end boat crew wished they had brought some artillery along to repel boarders. However Jørgen Lindhardtsen, Craig, Quist and Jon Fish (GBR) tacked out of the carnage to lead up the first beat into a large shift. Craig just led from Lindhardtsen round the top mark followed by Quist and Fish. Craig again sailed some first class offwind legs to let both Quist and Lindhardtsen through.

By now the breeze had increased to force three and was still building. Craig pased Lindhardtsen and set off in pursuit of Quist. However on the run, Quist showed his potential by pulling away with Craig fending off Lindhardtsen. Meanwhile Hans Elkjær (SWE) had an amazing leg to move up to fourth.

The final beat proved decisive for Craig as the breeze increased to force four he overtook Quist with a combination of superior boatspeed and correctly nailing the final few shifts to take his second race win of the week. Lindhardtsen finsihed third with Fish recovering well to fourth – but a later disqualification gave fourth place to Elkjær.

After four races, Craig is the clear leader, although with the discard taking effect after race five race tomorrow, his lead may not be so large. Tonight the local organisers have arranged a match racing competition inside the fjord with a prize of half the winner’s weight in beer. Needless to say, each country has ensured its heaviest sailor represents them.

Results:

Pos	Sailno	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	Scores
1	GBR 2116	NickCraig	1	3	3	1	8,0
2	AUS 678	Roger Blasse	3	6	6	11	26,0
3	DEN 1335	Mogens Johansen	5	4	15	10	34,0
4	NZL 522	Greg Wilcox	16	1	8	12	37,0
5	GER 693	Martin Von Zimmermann	15	8	9	5	37,0
6	DEN 1280	Jørgen Lindhardtsen	7	18	12	3	40,0
7	DEN 1302	Ulf Brandt	8	12	25	8	53,0
8	POL 14	Pawel Pawlaczyk	12	5	19	21	57,0
9	SWE 2741	Thomas Hansson-Mild	14	15	11	19	59,0
10	NZL 525	Steve McDowell	2	17	18	23	60,0
11	SWE 99	Hans Elkjaer	11	27	21	4	63,0
12	DEN 1345	Frank Hansen	6	19	16	24	65,0
13	GER 717	Oliver Gronholz	24	23	2	17	66,0
14	SWE 2762	Jonas Quist	4	bfd	1	2	72,0
15	DEN 1344	Peter Wibro	19	25	22	9	75,0
16	DEN 1340	Jesper Petersen	39	10	4	31	84,0
17	GER 624	Thomas Glas	25	34	20	7	86,0
18	NZL 521	Mark Perrow	10	16	44	16	86,0
19	DEN 1330	Troels Lykke	35	7	33	14	89,0
20	SWE 2750	Jonas Lindahl	29	20	26	15	90,0