Leaderboard tightens

Good day for Mathieu Richard puts him tied at the top of the open division at the ISAF Nations Cup match racing

It was a beautiful Irish sunny day on Thursday at ISAF Nations Cup Grand Final at the Royal Cork Yacht Club with 12-15kts of wind from the north. The tide dictated more than wind today and gave all the tacticians extra work to figure out the favoured side of the course.

First out onto the race course were the women’s fleet and as they enter the middle of the second series of the round robin, each team is becoming more aware of how important each win is to them.

The leaderboard has tightened at the top and now the Australian and the French teams are equal in the overall standings with Bermuda and Denmark hot on their heels. It’s the Dutch team that looks like the loser of the day but they still have one race in hand as they had their second bye in flight 10.

The Brazilian ladies team were short as one of their crew injured her knee and an Irish replacement crew of Rathnait Long (Royal Cork Yacht Club) quickly filled the empty position. However loyalties were divided when the Brazilian and Irish team met up in the first flight of the morning in match two. A battle ensued and it was to be the Brazilians to take the bullet- their first for the event.

The battle will be on for Friday afternoon for the ladies as the 5 remaining flights will be sailed.

The Open (men’s) event flights were delayed during the afternoon, as the course was re-positioned to the new change of wind direction. South African Ian Ainsle had a bad day taking to race losses from the Frenchman Mattieu Richard and fifth placed America Brian Angel.

After the days racing Richard now tops the pile with Ainsle dropping to third. Moving into second are the Russians skippered by Eugeniy Neugodnikov.

The remaining round robin flights will be sailed on Friday and if all flights are sailed then the Semi Finals will be held on Saturday . The number of races to be sailed will be decided by the race committee on Saturday morning.

Men
Skipper	Country	Wins	Losses
Mathieu Richard	FRA	11	3
Eugeniy Neugodnikov	RUS	11	3
Ian Ainsle	RSA	10	4
Martin Angsell	SWE	9	5
Brian Angel	USA	8	6
Simon Dickey	NZL	6	8
Juan Grimaldi	ARG	5	8
Mahesh Ramachandran	IND	3	11
George Kingston	IRL	3	11
Helder Basilio	POR	3	11
Womens
Skipper	Country	Wins	Losses
Nicky Souter	AUS	9	3
Claire LeRoy	FRA	9	3
Paula Leven	BER	8	4
Lotte Pederson	DEN	8	4
Klaartje Zuiderbaan	NED	6	5
Mary O'Loughlin	IRL	4	8
Lucy MacGregor	GBR	4	8
Jessica Smythe	NZL	3	9
Rossana Ramos	BRA	1	11