Asterix consolidates

Andy Nicholson reports from the Mumm 30 World Championship in La Trinite

Louis Browne’s Asterix consolidated her lead on the second day of the Mumm 30 World Championship yesterday and now has an impressive 10 points for the five races sailed.

Today it was some time before the committee were happy with the wind direction and strength and the first of two races did not get underway until 3pm. The fleet were not back on the dock until 7.30pm.

In light conditions it was those boats that found nice lanes and kept rumbling along that seem to fare the best. Sailing in dirt was not a winning strategy at any point during the day. The courses were the same as Wednesday with two laps of a 1.7mile windward-leeward course with a final port rounding and a jib reach to the finish.

On Rainbow we had four windward mark roundings like everyone else, however only one passed without incident!

Boat of the day was Robert Barr’s Kanati, who seemed to stretch her legs in the eight knot breeze and score a fifth and a second to move her up to fourth place overall. Britain’s Laser ace Paul Goodison is on the tactics.

Toulon Provence also had a good day - they are noticeably quick upwind - and have moved into third place four points behind Dangerous But Fun. A disappointing 21st for Bouygues Telecom in the second race of the day has moved them down to fifth.

It does however remain tight with six races (and potentially 240 points) still to sail. A number of boats were called OCS on the last race including Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad.

And so the exciting day on Rainbow. The first attempt at the windward mark saw us come in on port and foul the mark - which then hooked over the stanchion and started coming down the reach with us. Fortunately we were able to free it before one of the Australians on board knifed it Crocodile Dundee-style. We did our turn and sailed on recovering to 26th place.

Next up was the biggest crash I have been in on a Mumm 30 as we went head to head with Triple P at a closing speed of 12 knots. We had set up on the starboard layline and were comfortable, with another boat just in front. Triple P was attempting to sneak around the mark from the port layline but there was no room and he bore away to dip the boat in front of us - only to then be horrified to see us there. We all assumed the crash position and we hit with our bow about one foot back from his with all the accompanied sound effects. He was flung onto the other tack as both boats hit at the gunwhales.

Miraculously we had no damage and we were both able to continue racing.

After surviving that incident we then staged a bit of a recovery only to then get caught in a nice port-starboard trap at the final windward mark rounding of the day and lost a heap of boats doing our 720deg turn. So nearing the scheduled half way stage we have slipped down to 17th but remain just 12 points off the top ten.

The forecast today is for the breeze to become established a little earlier and build to a force 3-4. No postponement has gone up.

Results

Pos	Boat	Skipper	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Tot
1	ASTERIX	L. Browne	2.00	2.00	3.00	2.00	1.00	10
2	DANGEROUS BUT FUN	M. Perris	1.00	8.00	5.00	7.00	4.00	25
3	TOULON PROVENCE MEDITERRANEE COYCH	F. Henry	5.00	3.00	12.00	3.00	6.00	29
4	KANATI	C.R. Barr	7.00	11.00	11.00	5.00	2.00	36
5	BOUYGUES TELECOM	Pl. Berthet	3.00	7.00	1.00	6.00	21.00	38
6	FOREIGN AFFAIR	R. Perini	4.00	18.00	9.00	4.00	12.00	47
7	TWINS 3	E. Maris	12.00	13.00	10.00	8.00	13.00	56
8	GROOVEDERCI	D. Demourkas	9.00	4.00	2.00	24.00	20.00	59
9	TOBAGO	H. Leduc	14.00	5.00	15.00	17.00	10.00	61
10	BARKING MAD	J. Richardson	6.00	6.00	12.00	15.00	30.00	69
11	MEAN MACHINE	P. de Ridder	24.00	21.00	13.00	18.00	3.00	79
12	TECHNEAU PAYS GRANVILLAIS	B. Charon	16.00	34.00	6.00	11.00	14.00	81
13	VAN UDDEN TU DELFT	G. Van Der Heÿder	10.00	17.00	27.00	13.00	17.00	84
14	RUE-DU-PORT.COM	N. Pauchet	29.00	12.00	4.00	31.00	9.00	85
15	LE PORT-BRED-REUNION	M. Guessard	36.00	14.00	14.00	16.00	5.00	85
16	DEFI PARTAGE-MARSEILLE	T. Bouchard	19.00	22.00	25.00	10.00	11.00	87
17	RAINBOW	Bent Dietrich	20.00	10.00	7.00	26.00	25.00	88
18	ALPES MARITIMES	S. Chtounder	15.00	19.00	22.00	1.00	33.00	90
19	AMEC SPIE SODIFAC ROUBAIX	E. Basset	8.00	24.00	35.00	23.00	8.00	98
20	BELVEDERE-EBSCO	V. Portugal	17.00	25.00	33.00	9.00	15.00	99
21	COTES D'ARMOR	V. Biarnes	34.00	20.00	18.00	12.00	18.00	102
22	MOONSHINE	Jack Kelly	21.00	26.00	24.00	14.00	24.00	109
23	MAMMY !	Foley Diarmuid	27.00	16.00	31.00	29.00	7.00	110
24	COURRIER DUNKERQUE	G. Trentesaux	22.00	28.00	20.00	19.00	35.00	124
25	REGION ILE DE FRANCE	J. Pahun	38.00	1.00	38.00	22.00	27.00	126
26	TOPAS	H. Bruening	32.00	9.00	17.00	27.00	41.00	126
27	FILENET	L. Corazza	25.00	36.00	21.00	28.00	16.00	126
28	OUI	P. Mckenzie	13.00	30.00	26.00	30.00	31.00	130
29	NANTES ST-NAZAIRE 1	L. Sambron	26.00	35.00	16.00	20.00	39.00	136
30	DUNKERQUE PLAISANCE	D. Souben	11.00	38.00	28.00	37.00	26.00	140
31	INEO SUEZ POLE I.R.S	P. Langlais	23.00	32.00	19.00	32.00	36.00	142
32	ZUXU	Viisemann/Saraskin	31.00	15.00	23.00	36.00	40.00	145
33	TRIPLE P	F. Khalegui Yazdi	18.00	31.00	36.00	40.00	23.00	148
34	CARRY-CNTL-UNIMECA	C. Bauler	40.00	39.00	29.00	21.00	19.00	148
35	WHITE SHARK	G. Gibbons	28.00	29.00	34.00	33.00	41.00	165
36	FELICITY	H. Harwood/Nick Hartshorn	35.00	23.00	32.00	39.00	38.00	167
37	SILICON THEATRE SCENERY	R. Pronk	33.00	41.00	40.00	25.00	29.00	168
38	EMINENCE	S. Brain	39.00	37.00	30.00	34.00	28.00	168
39	PSA PEUGEOT CITROEN	E. Blouet	30.00	27.00	37.00	35.00	40.00	169
40	NANTES ST-NAZAIRE 2	G. Aunette	37.00	33.00	39.00	38.00	30.00	177