More thunder and lightning

Rotten conditions continue in Sardinia for the J/24 Italian Championship reports Chris McLaughlin

In a day of extremes, the J/24 fleet at Cannigione was made to wait onshore for most of the day as thunder and lightning broke over the race track. Rain continued throughout the day and into the evening in very un-seasonal conditions.

The race committee waited until 4pm to send the fleet out to the start, with the race officer rumoured to be trying to get a fourth race completed to give a series in advance of an anticipated Mistral on Friday.

On the way to the start, in heavy rain, the fleet changed from genoa to jib and back to genoa over the course of 30 minutes.

Ian Southworth, sailing Inmarsat Hedgehog and starting to race after crew illness, led the fleet off the line and to the windward mark. Conditions were light, force 2-3 with 20 degree shifts. Southworth led the downwind leg and opted for the port mark to lead into the final approach to the second windward mark. It then became clear that the race officer had shifted the weather mark to the right, although there had been no sound signal at the leeward mark. All VHF transmission being in Italian...

Series leader, Andrea Casale, had a bad start but dug back from the teens towards the right hand side of the beat in the light shifting conditions, this paid off and at the second windward mark, Casale rounded with a 50m lead on Luigi Ravioli and Matias Pereira of Argentina who had aslo gone right. Southworth and Greg Wilcox battled for fourth place down the run to the finish, with the German just taking fourth on the pin end line bias.

At 18.40, the Race Officer switched on his navigation lights and attempted a second start. The fleet greeted this by whistling and banging their side decks in disapproval and promptly went over the line.

The race officer gave a General Recall but the Fleet continued beating to windward leaving him alone with his sound signals!

As the Fleet carried on home, the Race officer decided to abandon racing for the day.

This has been a difficult Championship to date and the venue seems unduly dominated by local and shifting conditions,

Comments Ian Southworth: " It was great to be back on the water. Andrea Casale and his team are sailing very sharp and have great speed in their old boat. Their team mate, Luigi Ravioli is equally on pace, just as at Livorno a few weeks ago. It is going to be a very tough J24 World Championship".