Jablonski comes good

Former match race world champion wins in Marseilles

For the last day of the competition at the Marseilles International Match Race, conditions were light with a south to westerly wind ranging from 0 to 6 knots. The races started at 10am and finished at 12am with the semi-finals and the matches for the fifth and sixth places. At noon, the organisers had to stop sailing because of lack of wind. The finals were sailed between 2:30pm and 4:30pm when the wind returned. The sea was flat to lightly choppy under a cloudy sky during all day.

The weather today contrasted with the previous days here where racing has taken place in strong winds.

The fight between fifth and sixth was quickly determined with two consecutive victories by Kevin Harrap over Dimitri Deruelle. Harrap from New Zealand won his two matches leading the matches from beginning to end.

The two semi-finals took place this morning between Bertrand Pace and Matthieu Richard in the first semi-final and Luc Pillot v Karol Jablonski in the second. In the first match, Pace won by a small margin over Richard, taking the lead just before the finishing line. Richard commented afterwards: “we were ahead and lost this match for a two second hesitation over a gybe. We thought that Bertrand did not have the place to gybe and passed us. When I saw I was wrong, it was too late - Bertrand’s sails covered my spinnaker and our boat lost it's speed. Bertrand passed us and won this first match.”

The second match was more clear cut: Pace took the lead at the beginning of the race and expended through until the finish. 2-0 up he passed through to the final.

In the second semi-final, like Bertrand Pace, Poland's Karol Jablonski won two times consecutively against Luc Pillot. Jablonski won with better positioning at the start and during the race, anticipated the wind shifts and gusts to his advantage.

So Jablonski and Pace ended up in the final wsith Pillot and Richard in the petit final. These matches finally took place after two hours waiting for the wind to return. In Petite Finals Richard quickly gained the advantage over Pillot to take third place.



The final itself between Pace and Jablonski was more competitive. Jablonski won the first match by a large margin after making the most of a strong wind shift on the first leg. Pace then went on to win the second match because of an advantage at the start of the match: Pace blocked Jabonski to take the start at the committee boat.

A third and last match to determine saw the two boats start together but Jablonski was ahead at the first cross. From here Jablonski controlled Pace and slowly extended: two boat lengths at the first mark, three at the second and five at the last upwind mark.

Britain's Ian Williams finished seventh overall.