Day 4: Sparkling day on Clyde as qualifying series comes to a close
They may have had to wait a few days but when the breeze finally arrived on the Clyde this morning, the fleet knew they were in for a good day’s racing.
A steady 9kt south-south-westerly in sparkling sunshine more than made up for the lack of wind over the last few days, allowing the final qualifying races to take place.
Powered up and on tip-top racing form, the 320 young sailors, battled it out all day on the flat waters at the northern end of Cumbrae, and once again there were some new faces appearing at the top end of the fleets which demonstrates just how competitive the racing is here this week, among these extremely talented sailors.
The Americans are starting to make an impact on the fleet with the likes of 17-year-old Erika Reineke from Florida extending her already impressive scoreline by clocking up another first today and two more seconds, which means she now has overall lead ahead of Manami Doi (JPN). Sixteen-year-old Mitchell Kiss (USA) added a second place to his first place earlier in the week to improve his overall standing to sixth, and Carson Crain, also from the USA, scored a second in Red flight.
Some impressive results are starting to appear within the Polish camp too. Paulina Barwinska started the series off with a win in the first race, but today the boys excelled with Tadeusz Kubiak taking a win in Blue flight which, together with his 1,3 earlier this week, puts him in contention in the Boys event. Teammate Damian Pietruszewski who won the first race of the Yellow flight today is also looking good.
The Norwegians are a team to keep a careful eye on over the next couple of days too. They are performing consistently in both fleets, with Oslo-based Hermann Tomasgaard well up on the leaderboard with string top three results. Tiril Bue has also logged some good results, which leaves her in third place overall going into tomorrow’s finals.
With all the qualification races now complete, boats will be assigned to final series fleets Gold, Silver and Bronze on the basis of their ranks in the qualifying series. The finals to determine the world champions will take place tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday.
Laser Radial Youth World Championship 2010
Girls Overall after Day 4, 7 races, 1 discard (qualifying series)
1 Erika Reineke (USA) 9pts
2 Manami Doi (JPN) 15pts
3 Tiril Bue (NOR) 21pts
4 Patricia Coro Leveque (ESP) 30pts
5 Michelle Broekhuizen (NED) 31pts
6 Sandy Fauthoux (FRA) 38pts
For Boys results click on Results in the bar above
Quotes:
Erika Reineke (USA): “The conditions were similar to yesterday but there was more of a left trend and fairly choppy again. In the beginning there was good breeze but it had dropped off by the third race. I had a close battle with the Norwegian and the girl from Israel. The key was to get in the good starts again. Tomorrow I’m looking to be in the top five but it’s going to be interesting because I’ll be racing all the girls in the gold fleet, including the fast girl from Japan [Manami Doi].”
Tiril Bue (NOR): “I am having a good week. And I’m looking forward to racing in the gold fleet tomorrow because there’ll be some good sailors in the same fleet. I was at the ISAF worlds but didn’t like the light conditions. It’s been light here too but I feel I understand the conditions here, so it’s been much better. There were lots of wind holes today so it was important to avoid those. Basically today it was important to keep in the wind and keep up the speed but starting correctly was even more important. Thankfully my starts have been very good this week, hopefully I’ll do the same again tomorrow.”
Hermann Tomasgaard (NOR): “We had three races finishing with 3,10,2. It was light wind but because I weigh 62 kilos it was perfect for me. I like light to moderate winds because I can hike. It was very shifty and hard to know which side to go today. I concentrated on good starts because that is very important. Catching the windshifts was also very important today. I am pleased with my boat so I am not intending to alter anything for the finals except for giving it a good wash down.”
Ramon Gonzalez (PUR): “I won the fifth race today after a really good start from the pin end. I picked up a gust and crossed the fleet on port and got the mark in third. I got into the lead on the downwind leg and had to cover hard on the last upwind. It was very difficult because by this time the wind had dropped. I was quite a nervous because I feared I’d end up in no wind at all. It was all very close between myself and the other two but I managed to retain the lead. It feels great to have won the race particularly as I’ve not had such good results so far this week. I actually won the last race of the ISAF World championship in Turkey last week when it was windy so I feel very happy and very confident that I can perform well tomorrow, particularly if the wind increases.”
23/7/2010 21:01
