Issue # 203

 Today's Sailing News 

Match Racing Worlds Day 2

After a morning of waiting for wind the worlds best match racers spent a day facing off in lite air.  Winds never went above 10 knots and were quite shifty.  The shifts were large often meaning that comebacks did not occur.

Still in 1st is Kiwi Dean Barker now with 8 wins in 10 races.  Barker did lose his first races one to Pace and one to Mohr.

Pace is 2nd along with former world champion Peter Gilmour.  Gilmour was able to beat Pace.  Certainly these three sailors are favorites and it is no surprise to see them top of table.

Next is Luc Pillot who won 4 of 5 races on day 2.  .5 points back is Dane Sten Mohr who said of the conditions: "It is hard to be at the Championship with such fluky conditions but this is what sailing is."

Magnus Holmberg is next with 5 points with Frenchman Francois Brenac .5 points back.  Brenac and Mohr had .5 points deducted to due on water collisions on day 1.  All of these skippers would seem to still have a shot at the semi finals.

Andy Green and Tomislav Basic have 3 points.  A trio of Danes Jesper Radich, Jesper Bank and Jems Gram-Hansen have 2 points.

Bank is the defending champion, but seems resigned to defeat.  After day 2's sailing Bank said: "Expectations…we came to realize that we do not know the boats well enough so we are not a real threat to anyone."

The expected sailors are looking threatening with another pack of 4 also striving for the semi finals.  

Team Philips, Pete Goss' recently wounded entry for The Race is making repair progress.

The detached bow is now lined up to the main hull.  This will allow the build team to reattach the bow to the hull.

While the boat is rebuilt one the catamaran's mast has been set up on land.  This allows the 6 man crew to work on sail handling and development.  

Recently crewman Paul Larsen managed to raise the sail single handed in 15 minutes.  Just another sign of the scale on which the fleet of boats for The Race is built on.