Some ups and downs on penultimate day at Zadar, but the leaders hold position
The third day of the Final Series at Zadar continued with the light wind from the South, but two races were completed for both Gold and Silver Fleets. With several boats OCS in the second race and some leading boats in both races suffering lowerthan- usual results, there were changes in overall picture by the end of the day. However, Vasilis Papoutsoglou & Akylas Drougkas (GRE) extended their lead to 16 points in the Gold Fleet and
Lucy de Boltz & Molly Parkin (GBR) kept their prime position in theCamilla Marino & Claudia Soricelli (ITA) continue to lead the women, but withth and a 3rd to their name. “ There was a littleth overall, again in spite of notth in the last race.th at the first mark, butth after the second”.th in the Gold Fleet.th, but then were fast downwind and onth and we achieved 6th on the last downwind leg”. Talking ofë. He “motivates a lot, he knows how
Silver Fleet.
just a nine-point margin from Nina Keijzer & Annaloese van Veen (NED).
The top men came off the water anxious to establish who was where and what was what,
with one day’s sailing remaining. So we started by talking to the women. Annaloese van
Veen and her helm, Nina Keijzer (NED) were in buoyant mood. In spite of their preference for
bigger winds, they had had a great day, with a 5
bit of current, and we took advantage of it. We knew when to go, because we had figured it
out before the Championship started, when we were training in these very wind conditions.
We did the same in both races, and the early learning paid off!”, explained Anneloes. “We
are really glad, but more wind would be good, so maybe tomorrow!”, responded Nina.
The boys were ready for us now. Tim Saxton, crewing with Owain Matthews, was busy
calculating the odds, having moved up the leader board to 4
being the lightest team on the block. “It was a tricky day – all about getting off the start and
then staying there”, said Tim – it seems they too managed this with a 5
Vasilis, of team Vasilis Papoutsoglou & Akylas Drougkas (GRE), explained that their first
race (which they have discarded) had not been very good – The day had “some shifts, light,
some gusts of different strength. The first was a bad start for us, though we pulled back a few
places. In the second, we started in the middle, the centre was good, we tacked to the right,
but unfortunately a big shift came from the left, so we were maybe 14
we pulled back to 8
The Chilean team, Benjamin Grez & Carlos Vergara finished the day 15
Said Benjamin, “we had a very bad start in the first race; we were near the pin end, we
waited a little for the first boats to tack so as to get clear wind. We caught the lifts in the
middle, rounding the first windward mark around 30
the reach reducing the gap to 10
the development of the 420 Class in Chile, Carlos explained that he had finished with the
Optimist (due to his height) about five months before Benjamin, and had gained early 420
crewing experience with a girl helm in the new boats to Chile. The Class was just getting
started, and all were sailing in new boats. Both sailors paid tribute to the motivation and
leadership afforded to them by their coach, Christi