Photos: IDA/Michael Austin

Difficult day on the water

Early lead to Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen at the Gazprom International Dragon Worlds

Sunday September 8th 2013, Author: Fiona Brown, Location: United Kingdom

The opening day of the Gazprom International Dragon World Championship 2013 at Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy produced controversy, drama and one incredibly tough but exciting race. The controversy revolved around race management with some unhappiness amongst the sailors about both starting procedures and course changes. The extremely shifty conditions and the eagerness of the crews didn't make life easy for Race Officer Tim Hancock and the results show that a number of the hot favourites found themselves much further down the ranking than they would normally expect.

After early morning thunder storms and heavy rain blew through, the crews arrived in the race area to find a shifty southwesterly wind of 15-18 knots, scudding clouds, occasional bursts of wonderful sunshine and plenty of big waves. It took three attempts to get the race started, two under black flag with a total of seven teams being sent home for an early bath. Among those out of the race were Mark Dicker, IDA Chairman Richard Blickman, IDA Technical Committee Chairman Philip Dohse and Dave Ross, whose crew this week includes David Bedford.

The start which eventually got the fleet away was not without incident as a big right hander in the closing moments of the sequence gave those at the committee boat end a big initial advantage. Fortunately an equally big left hander half way up the first beat evened things out again and at the top mark Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen and Martin Payne, who had come off the middle of the line, led in with Uli Libor from the left, Yvgen Braslavets, Remy Arnaud, Lief Carlsson and Marcus Brennecke in pursuit.

In response to the huge wind shifts of up to 40 degrees, the race committee made some equally huge mark movements. But the breeze proved just as likely to swing back again as stay put and with the fleet on legs of over two miles it wasn't long before the committee found themselves out of sync. The fleet ended up on a shocking one tacker for the second beat which completely reshuffled the pack. The sailors problems were compounded because the mark change signal boat only advised port or starboard for directional change and + or - to indicate length, but gave no new bearing or distance. From a Dragon in big seas, with the wind all over the show and no mark boats large enough to see from the other end of the course it was anyone's guess where the marks were at times.

After racing Hoj-Jensen summed up the fleet's thoughts well saying: "We couldn't see the marks. Because the waves are so big they would have been smart to have a big boat with a big flag up there." Martin Payne added: "I think when the course is so long, you don't need to go quite so drastic [with mark moves], just a subtle move one way or the other.

Many of the hot favourites going into the event found themselves caught out by the big shifts and mark movements, with Lars Hendriksen struggling off the line, recovering well on the first beat, getting buried on the second beat and eventually fighting his way back up to 14th. Others who floundered included Markus Wieser who finished 18th, Tommy Mueller 20th, and defending champion Lawrie Smith in 23rd. Tonight there are more than a few sailors relieved that this eight race series includes one discard.

While some struggled, others excelled and on the line Hoj-Jensen claimed victory from Libor with Brenneck second, Russian triple Olympian Andrey Kirilyuk, who this week is standing in for regular helm Dimitry Samokin, third and Braslavets fourth.

After sailing Hoj-Jensen paid tribute to the race sailed by Ulli Libor, whom he has known since their days together in the Flying Dutchman Class. "We both sailed Flying Dutchmen in '68 in the Olympics in Mexico where he got a silver medal and I was sixth or seventh, so it was quite good fun to see that he's really come back and has good speed in the boat. He was the one who came back from the left side [on the first beat] up to the first mark and he was very, very close to us."

For Hoj-Jensen it was a day of double victory as he also won the Corinthian Division for all amateur crews, with Martin Palsson in second, Remy Arnaud third and Philipp Ocker fourth.

While there may have been many challenges for the sailors on the race course today, the one thing that must be said is that the racing was nail bitingly close and in the big swells and fabulous late summer light the fleet made a stunning sight powering across Weymouth Bay with the spectacular Jurassic Coast as backdrop. Despite today's challenges the fleet is in excellent spirits and the sailors have been fulsome in their praise of the facilities at WPNSA and the outstanding welcome extended by the British hosts.

As the exhausted but exhilarated crews returned ashore there was one more drama to come when defending champion Lawrie Smith's crew, Tim Tavinor, sustained a nasty hand injury as two boats came together on returning to the dock. Whilst not life threatening Tim has been taken to hospital for medical treatment and his fitness to sail tomorrow is currently uncertain.

Tavinor, Managing Director of Burnham On Crouch-based Dragon builder, Petticrows, was particularly missed at this evening's post racing gathering as it was sponsored by Petticrows who laid on a fantastic "Pies and Beers" session for the hungry sailors. Petticrows also sponsored this evening's spot draw prizes with packs of Petticrows goodies going to two teams drawn by Tavinor's wife and business partner, Kay, who also thanked the Dragon sailors for their many years of loyal support. Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen, who took over Petticrows 25 years ago and spearheaded the company's domination of the Dragon market until his retirement five years ago, also spoke in Tavinor's absence of the company's long association with the Dragon and their ongoing partnership withe their customers in maintaining their product refinement programme.

Tomorrow two races are scheduled and with lighter winds forecast it will be a very different day of racing. The regatta will continue until Friday 13 September with a maximum of eight races scheduled with a single discard coming into play after the completion of race six.

Full results below

 

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Results:

Pos Sail no Helm Crew Crew2 R1 Tot
1 GBR775 Poul Richard HOJ-JENSEN Hamish MACKAY Andrew NORDEN 1 1
2 SUI307 Ulli LIBOR Michael HANDRICK Joerg MOESSNANG 2 2
3 GER11 Marcus BRENNECKE Marc PICKEL Thomas AURACHER 3 3
4 RUS76 Andrey KIRILYUK Aleksey BUSHUEV Alina DOTSENKO 4 4
5 UKR8 Yevgen BRASLAVETS Igor SIDOROV Sergiy TIMOKHOV 5 5
6 RUS77 Inna SHTERNBERG Yury BOZHEDOMOV Valeriy USHKOV 6 6
7 GER1120 Michael SCHMIDT Malte PHILIPP Peter LIEBNER 7 7
8 GBR771 Martin PAYNE John MORTIMER Rui BOIA 8 8
9 UAE20 Hendrik WITZMANN Michael KOCH Markus KOY 9 9
10 GBR708 Quentin STRAUSS Simon STRAUSS Nigel YOUNG 10 10
11 HUN57 Ferenc KIS-SZOLGYEMI Karoly VEZER Tamas KISS 11 11
12 NED412 Pieter HEEREMA Theis PALM Herve CUNNINGHAM 12 12
13 DEN138 Lars HENDRIKSEN Lars Stenfeldt HANSEN Joost HOUWELING 13 13
14 FRA402 Stephane BASEDEN Paul MCKENZIE Patrick AUCOUR 14 14
15 FRA396 Remy ARNAUD Herald ARNAUD Pascal CIVEL 15 15
16 GBR758 Klaus DIEDERICHS Andy BEADSWORTH Jamie LEA 16 16
17 UKR7 Markus WIESER Sergey PUGACHEV Georgii LEONCHUK 17 17
18 POR63 Diogo BARROS Jorge LIMA Rúbrio BASÍLIO 18 18
19 GER1133 Thomas MÜLLER Hoesch VINCENT Lipp MICHAEL 19 19
20 GBR682 Eric WILLIAMS Rory PATON Katie COLE 20 20
21 GER1135 Philipp OCKER Florian GROSSER Oliver DAVIES 21 21
22 GBR785 Lawrie SMITH Ossie STEWART Tim TAVINOR 22 22
23 SWE357 Leif LARSVALL Staffan CARLSSON Ulf KJELIN 23 23
24 NED402 Jan BAKKER Dominic BAKKER Olivier BAKKER 24 24
25 GBR720 Julia BAILEY Graham BAILEY William HERITAGE & Richard POWELL 25 25
26 RUS27 Anatoly LOGINOV Vadim STATSENKO Alexander SHALAGIN 26 26
27 RUS35 Victor FOGELSON Oleg KHOPERSKIY Viacheslav KHAPTIUKHIN 27 27
28 SUI311 Hugo STEINBECK Martin WESTERDAHI Pedro ANDRADE 28 28
29 GBR782 David ATKINSON Ian TURNBULL John OUTHWAITE 29 29
30 NED411 Charlotte TEN WOLDE Gillis JONK Martin LEIFELT 30 30
31 GBR693 Timothy BLACKWELL Lisa GUY Roger GUY 31 31
32 GBR747 Stewart COLTART Catriona COLTART Toby ATACK 32 32
33 AUS227 Marcus BLACKMORE Terry WETTON Don COWIE 33 33
34 RUS34 Vasiliy SENATOROV Igor IVASHINTSOV Aleksander MUZICHENKO 34 34
35 FRA391 Jean BREGER Clement SOULET Gaetan AUNETTE 35 35
36 SWE389 Karl-Gustaf LÖHR Martin RUDBÄCK Jesper BENDIX 36 36
37 IRL198 Garry TREACY Paul MAGUIRE Don O'DOWD 37 37
38 POR55 Jose MATOSO Gustavo LIMA Frederico MELO 38 38
39 GBR763 Simon BARTER James BARTER Donald WILKS 39 39
40 NED414 Andre DU PON Robbert BLAUWKUIP Huib BANNIER 40 40
41 GBR675 Christopher BREALY David HARRIS Brian MCKENZIE 41 41
42 NED311 Abram DE WILDE Pier DE IONGH Michiel INSINGER 42 42
43 JPN50 Bocci AOYAMA Tetsuya SASAKI Norio IGEI 43 43
44 GER1035 Nico REUTER Michael OBERMAIER Leopold OBERMAIER 44 44
45 SUI313 Dirk OLDENBURG Ingo BORKOWSKI Phil BLINN 45 45
46 GER1071 Helmut SCHMIDT Andreas LISTL Stefan HELLRIEGEL 46 46
47 AUS210 Sandy ANDERSON John MONCRIEFF John LOW 47 47
48 GBR777 Owen PAY Alex DOBSON Nick WOOD 48 48
49 GBR761 Gavia WILKINSON-COX Roger Hickman Vicente PINHEIRO 49 49
50 GBR768 Christopher HUNT Mark HART Mark DALY 50 50
51 AUS217 Gordon INGATE David GILES Dayne SHARP 51 51
52 GBR722 Mark WADE Amanda WADE Simon CASH 52 52
53 GER1013 Peter FRÖSCHL Sabrina FRÖSCHL Martin WIESER 53 53
54 SUI294 Zuercher WALTER Oral JORDY Ruppli URS 54 54
55 RUS81 Leonid KLEPIKOV Alexander MIRONOV Yuri SAMOYLOV 55 55
56 GBR788 Robert CAMPBELL Matt WALKER Justin WAPLES 56 56
57 NED314 Rudy DEN OUTER Jeroen BURKS Lydia VERDUYN 57 57
58 AUS170 Ronald PACKER John LONGLEY Philippa PACKER 58 58
59 AUS201 Raymond CHATFIELD Karen CHATFIELD Brett WATKINS 59 59
60 GER968 Michael SCHATTAN Peter WICKLMAYR Friederike GEPPERT 60 60
61 GBR755 Julian SOWRY Ian OLSON Geoff BUTCHER 61 61
62 GBR633 Ron JAMES Julia WALSH Mark PETTITT 62 62
63 FIN88 Catja EVERHALL BLOM Eeva SAUKONEN Mario WAGNER & Pille VOLMER 63 63
64 AUS218 Robert ALPE PETER ABRAHAM Rene NEL 64 64
65 NED403 Maarten KLINKENBERG Daniel GOEDKOOP Bart KLINKENBERG 65 65
66 GBR753 Jono RATNAGE Ross MCKISSOCK Guy CLARABUT 66 66
67 GBR739 Nigel KAULA Teresa WILKES Simon HOWARD & Joanna RICHARDSON 67 67
68 RUS47 Boris KHABAROV Vadim FEDOROV Elena KHABAROVA & Denis BYKOV 68 68
69 SWE358 Hans LILJEBLAD John MAGNUSSON Fredrik HEIJNE 78.0 BFD 78
69 NED393 Richard BLICKMAN Daan DIJXHOORN Nick SPAANS 78.0 BFD 78
69 GER1042 Dr. Philip DOHSE Christian MOELLER Oliver MOSE 78.0 BFD 78
69 GBR660 Dave ROSS Dave BEDFORD Paul KELSEY 78.0 BFD 78
69 GBR610 Mark DICKER Selina DICKER James CAMPBELL & Katie BARR 78.0 BFD 78
69 SWE375 Martin PALSSON Goran ALM Johan NOREN 78.0 DSQ 78
69 GBR717 Patrick GIFFORD Michael GIFFORD Andrew PRITCHARD-BARRETT 78.0 DNC 78
69 GBR764 Mike HAYLES Monique HAYLES Alex MACDONALD 78.0 BFD 78
69 AUS225 Willy PACKER Julian HARDING John HAY 78.0 BFD 78
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