It was the French that nailed it on the second day of Skandia Sail for Gold 2010, with glittering, stand-out performances in three classes.

It was forecast to be Big Tuesday a couple of days ago – Doug Charko, the USA Team AlphaGraphics weather man told us on Sunday it would be 15-20 knots and gusting 25 - and so it was, with 49ers, Stars and Finns all sent back to the harbor early, and the SKUD-18’s not racing at all. Unfortunately for Doug, when the fleet was greeted with a flat calm this morning, he wound back his weather forecast a few notches… Not a happy man this evening, our Doug…

It was the French that nailed it on the second day of Skandia Sail for Gold 2010, with glittering, stand-out performances in three classes. Probably the most remarkable, given the conditions, were the two bullets that Manu Dyen and Stephane Christidis added to the three second places that they scored yesterday. They now lead the 49er class by seven points from Peter Burling and Blair Tuke from New Zealand.

We asked Stephane Christidis what their secret was... “It’s funny because we have been competing against each other for the last 15 years, and then we decided to start working together and it was a great decision. We're feeling really good at the moment, we're working well on the water and we were glad to have two weeks ahead of this event based in Weymouth for some training. We had a chance to understand the courses and conditions and get a better understanding of the event.”

The second members of France’s golden trio were the 470 duo of Pierre Leboucher and Vincent Garos, who also scored double bullets today, and added them to a first and third from yesterday to lead World Champions, Matt Belcher and Malcolm Page by eight points. Almost as dominant was Jonathan Lobert in the Finn Class, adding another second place to the first and second that he scored yesterday. It puts him 17 points clear of Dutchman Pieter-Jan Postma in second – not bad after just three races.

Jonathan Lobert said afterwards, “Today it was ok, overall I'm still leading but it was tough out there today. I've been training really hard this year and I think it is starting to pay off, I’ve been training with my team mate Thomas [Le Breton], which is great, and I think we're doing a good job out there.” Ben Ainslie will probably be grateful that someone else is getting the attention, so he can get on with his comeback quietly – which is why we had to mention him; Ainslie was 12th today and now lies sixth overall.

Elsewhere, the Kiwi Star pairing of Hamish Pepper and Craig Monk – winners of both of yesterday’s  races - slipped from their pedestal a little with a ninth today, but still lead overall. The other stand-out performers of yesterday also slipped closer to the pack. The Dutch Sonar team of Udo Hessels, Marcel van der Veen and Mischa Rossen followed up two bullets with a second and a third, and now lead the British team of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Stevie Thomas by just three points. Also slipping a little were Marit Bouwmeester and Veronika Fenclova in the Laser Radial - both girls winning their two races yesterday - today Bouwmeester won another, and then got a seventh in the final race, while Fenclova  only managed a fifth and an eighth. Bouwmeester now leads Fenclova by four points.

Results – Top Five
(results conditional on protests)

470 Woman Results (After four races)
1st Kondon and Tabata JPN 21 points
2nd Westerhof and Berkhout NED 23 points
3rd Petitjean and Douroux FRA 38 points
4th Koch and Sommer DEN 40 points
5th Rol and DeFrance FRA 45 points

470 Men Results (After four races)
1st Leboucher and Garos FRA 6 points
2nd Belcher and Page AUS 14 points
3rd Patience and Bithell 15 points
4th Fantela and Marenic CRO 19 points
5th Calabrese and De la Fuente 24 points

49er Results (After five races for the Yellow fleet and three for the Blue fleet )
1st Dyen and Christidis FRA 8 points
2nd Burling and Tuke NZL 15 points
3rd Sibello and Sibello ITA 26 points
4th Phillips and Phillips AUS 32 points
5th Pink and Peacock GBR 35 points

Finn Results (After three races)
1st Lobert FRA 5 points
2nd Postma NED 22 points 
3rd Gaspic CRO 22 points
4th Railey USA 23 points
5th Le Breton FRA 27 points

Laser Results (After four races)
1st Goodison GBR 12 points
2nd Murdoch NZL  14 points
3rd De Haas NED 18 points
4th Slingsby AUS 23 points
5th Leigh CAN 26 points

Laser Radial Results (After four races)
1st Bouwmeester NED 11 points 
2nd Fenclova CZE 15 points
3rd Van Acker BEL 15 points
4th De Turckheim FRA 16 points
5th Steyaert FRA 19 points

RS:X Men Results – (After four races)
1st Van Rijsselberge NED 10 points
2nd Dempsey GBR 10 points
3rd Rodrigues POR 10 points
4th Tobin NZL 14 points
5th Mashiah ISR 15 points

RS:X Women Results (After four races)
1st Manchon ESP 13 points
2nd Picon FRA 17 points
3rd Tartaglini ITA 18 points
4th Shaw GBR 26 points
5th Linares ITA 30 points

Star results – (After three races)
1st  Pepper and Monk NZL 11 points
2nd Polgar and Koy GER 14 points
3rd Florent and Rambeau FRA 21 points
4th Grael and Ferreira BRA 24 points
5th Scheidt and Prada BRA 25 points

Women’s Match Racing
1. Leroy, Riou and Bertrand FRA 7-0
2. Souter, Curtis and Price AUS 6-1
3. Macgregor, Lush and Macgregor GBR 5-0
4. Spithill, Eastwell and Farrell AUS 5-1
5. Tunicliffe, Vandemer and Capozzi USA 4-0
6. Le Berre, Ponsor and Ponge FRA 4-0
 
Paralympic

2.4mR Results – (After four races)
1st Damien FRA 6 points
2nd Schmitter NED 6 points
3rd Kol NED 12 points
4th Tingley CAN 26 points
5th Bugg Aus 28 points

Skud-18 Results – (After two races)
1st Rickham and Birrell GBR 3 points
2nd Fitzgibbon and Cox AUS 3 points
3rd McRoberts and Hopkin CAN 6 points
4th Hovden and Millward GBR 8 points
5th Hall and Faulks GBR 10 points

Sonar Results – (After four races)
1st Hessels and Rossen NED 7 points
2nd Robertson and Stodel GBR 10 points
3rd Kroker and Prem GER 12 points
4th Wang-hansen and Kristiansen NOR 17 points
5th Doerr and Freud USA 21 points


Links
Full Results
Race Tracker
Live Blog

Further Quotes
Ingrid Petitjean (FRA – Women’s 470, Sailing World Cup leader, and third overall at Skandia Sail for Gold 2010 with a first and a tenth today)
“The first race for us was good, we had moderate wind and then conditions increased during the race, then there was a big change in the second race today as the wind increased a lot. For us the second race wasn't as good.  We didn't have the best start and had to play catch up so as a result we lost a few places which is frustrating, but we are still in the game.”

Stephane Christidis (FRA – 49er, first overall with a 2, 2, 2, 1, 1 scoreline)
“What's our secret? We've been working very hard over the last 18 months. It’s funny because we have been competing against each other for the last 15 years, and then we decided to start working together and it was a great decision. We're feeling really good at the moment, we're working well on the water and we were glad to have two weeks ahead of this event based in Weymouth for some training. We had a chance to understand the courses and conditions and get a better understanding of the event".

“The speed of the boat is really good and we're pleased with our performance so far. Of course there is always  a little bit of luck out there. It’s good to start the week well, we want to show the French Sailing Federation that we can get good results and we are looking for a podium finish at this event. The competition is tough here in Weymouth, the Kiwis are doing really well and are a team to watch, as are the Australians so we have to keep working hard. We've had a great start but nothing is done yet. This is a very important event for us, there are many, many teams here who are all looking to perform, so we need to stay focused and really concentrate at this event, I hope we can keep it up.”


 

10/8/2010 20:53