Weatherman and weather agree

 

The supercomputers agreed with the weather gods today and we enjoyed 3 great races in a lovely 10-15 knot sea breeze, pretty much what was forecast. Everybody was ready to go at the midday start time but the PRO decided to wait half an hour for the sea breeze to settle in. There was a bit of ebb left in the tide when race 3 started at 12.30, enough to catch bag a few OCS's, but from then on the sea breeze settled, the tide turned, the cloud cleared and we enjoyed a beautiful day's sailing on excellent courses.

 

In  the Open Standards Andrew McKenzie (Kohi) and George Gautrey (Muritai) continued to battle it out at the front of the fleet with Andrew again winning the day with a 1/2/1, but having had to conceded one to George, who sailed a blinder to take out Race 4 and log a 2/1/2 for the day. The extra breeze today suited Matt Kempkers (Wakatere) who put together a 4/3/3 for the day but still trails 3rd placed Alastair Gifford from Queen Charlotte in the overall standings.

 

In the Open Radial fleet, there was no stopping Josh Armit (Murrays Bay) who really showed why he won the U17 worlds, being dominant in all 3 races today to reach the halfway point of the contest with a perfect score. Behind him, his Murrays Bay teammates, Women's Olympic hopeful Susannah Pyatt and Masters champion Scott Leith, had a close battle with Scott's 2/3/2 just pipping Susannah's 3/2/3. With the discard getting rid of Susannah's OCS from yesterdays race 1 these two are only separated by a single point going into day 3. Annabel Rennie Younger again had a solid day to hold 4th overall although Albert Stanley and Olivia Christie both had great days and are not far behind 5th and 6th. Samantha Stock continues to lead the Youth Women although Elly Warren found the conditions much more to her liking and closed the gap on Samantha considerably.

 

In the Masters Standard, the extra breeze was to the liking of Finn convert Ian Baker (Torbay), who flew upwind to take two Masters wins and jump up to second overall. However also enjoying the conditions was Wellingtonian and past champ Andrew Dellabarca, who scored a 2/1/2 to continue to lead overall. Behind these two there is a close group of aspirants, currently led by Nick Page (Pupuke) in 3rd overall, despite his succumbing to the outgoing tide start line trap in race 3, with a consistent Rob Woodward (Worser Bay) in 4th, while Cris Brodie (Pupuke) is now 5th after suffering speed wobbles and joining the Lyttelton Swimming Club in the last 2 races of the day.

 

In the Masters Radial local hero Hamish Atkinson found conditions a bit tougher today, scoring a 3/3/2 to sit equal on points with Ed Tam, who's 2/2/1 for the day looked impressive. However undisputed Radial Masters star of the day was ex-Olympian Jenny Armstrong (Dunedin) who gave the guys a sailing lesson and took out the first 2 races  of the day and now sits 3rd overall, tied with a consistent Werner Hennig (Hamilton) on points, just one ahead of Mike Knowsley who also had an extremely consistent day.

 

With the contest now at the halfway mark, it is difficult to think of any more ideal sailing conditions than we have enjoyed so far. The one thing all the forecasts agree on for tomorrow is that it will be hot, 31degrees predicted, but the wind is a different story with a range of possibilities proposed. Hopefully, we will again enjoy a solid breeze and continue the exceptional conditions we have enjoyed to date.

 

Nick Page

NZLA