#The National Yacht Club's Annalise Murphy continued her assault on an 82–Laser Radial fleet in a bitterly cold edition of the Delta Lloyd regatta in Holland yesterday. The Newstalk sponsored solo sailor scored a second race win and a third yesterday to be second overall in blustery conditions, just four points behind world number one Marit Bouwmeester of the host nation. In the mens division, Belfast's James Espey's run of top ten results came to a stop after he posted a 32 and 47 yesterday to lie 25th in the mens Laser gold fleet.
As Afloat.ie reported earlier, also competing in Delta Lloyd Regatta this week are Irish radial saiors Aisling Keller, Aoife Hopkins, Erica Ruigrok and Nicole Hemeryck. Irish Laser men competing are Fionn Lyden, Chris Russell, Finn Lynch and Darragh O'Sullivan.
The regatta has two further gold fleet races today before Saturday's important medal race which Annalise will certainly contend.
Day 3 of the Delta Lloyd Regatta brought stronger winds and steeper waves, making it the most physically challenging day so far for the 707 teams from 74 nations.
Ireland's Annalise Murphy recovered from two bad starts with some awesome boatspeed to score the 1,3 in the women's Laser Radials. But the 2012 Olympic silver medallist, Marit Bouwmeester, matched Murphy's scores and the Dutch sailor tops the leaderboard.
The men's Laser looks like it is turning into a two-horse race with two sailors tied at the top on 10 points, although on tiebreak it's Australia's Matt Wearn who holds the advantage over the Netherlands' Rutger van Schaardendburg. Dutch master, PJ Postma, maintains his stranglehold on the Finn singlehanded fleet.
Today's breeze looks set to be slightly lighter which, after yesterday's exertions, might come as a bit of a relief to some sailors at the Delta Lloyd Regatta.
