In the only race of the day for the Sonars on the second day of the Rio Paralympic sailing regatta, Ireland's John Twomey from Kinsale Yacht Club with crew Ian Costelloe and Austin O'Carroll finished 12th from 14 to put them 13th overall after three tricky races sailed in the 11–race series so far. Results are here.
The Canadian team, led by Beijing 2008 2.4 gold medallist Paul Tingley, held on for a very tight win after a good start. Only two seconds separated the top three on the Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain) race area.
Australia's Colin Harrison, Russell Boaden and Jonathan Harris remain top of the leaderboard on eight points with a fifth placed finish to add to their impressive first day. Day two, however, belonged to Canada's Tingley, Logan Campbell and Scott Lutes who move up to second place on 11 points with the only bullet on offer.
Waiting for the wind is not uncommon in sailing and sailors have their own way of dealing with the wait. For Canadian helm Tingley, he seemed to be enjoying the onshore facilities available to him before the Race Committee sent the fleet afloat, "It was a hot day at 37 degrees with the wind from the north. We were postponed so we were getting some cool A/C in the lounge. Then they decided to send us out as the wind was not going to change from the north, a direction which is very uncommon, so no sea breeze.”
Despite moving out of the comfort of the cool air, the early movement to the water from Tingley and crew paid dividends, "We were first onto the water and started to do our homework which helped us get a jump on the competition. The wind was a little right and then a little left, but we managed to get the first right shift to lead the race. Towards the end of race it flipped to the right and we had to change our game plan. With a couple of gybes towards the finish we came out on top by a nose.”
Whether or not it's the race win talking, Tingley seems to be enjoying what the first South American Games has to offer, "We love Rio so far. It's very variable, light winds and currents, you need to be always changing gears. I really like that 'thinking' type of racing. It's not just a one-way simple track, you must play the shifts and play snakes and ladders.”
Falling behind from the start, Norway's Aleksander Wang-Hansen, Marie Solberg and Per Eugen Kristiansen rounded the first mark in seventh overall, but the London 2012 bronze medallists are made of sterner stuff.
They pulled the race back in to their grasp to take the lead and were arguably favourites to push on for the win, but their progress was halted by a gybe which let their rivals back in. They lost out to Canada by just one second and sit sixth overall on 17 points.
Wang-Hansen explained the Norwegians day through his eyes, "It was a shifty, patchy, gusty day. Really tricky. We had a great start, but things didn't roll our way on the first upwind. But then we caught up a lot on the next two legs to be leading into the finish. We were certain that we were first, but we see now on the results that Canada just beat us.”
Just one second off Norway in the single race of the day were Vasilis Christoforou, Anargyros Notaroglou and Thodoris Alexas (GRE) who not only got third in the race, but mirror that on the leaderboard where they sit on 12 points.
A story possibly developing in the Sonar fleet is the 'curse' of the world champions. France (twice), Great Britain and USA are all world champions in the quad, but relatively slow starts on day one, backed up with mid to low placed finishes on day two means the highest positioned world champions are Alphonsus Doerr, Hugh Freund and Bradley Kendell (USA) in seventh overall. But a World Championship title isn't won by giving up or taking the bad to heart, so watch out in the next few race days for possible leaderboard climbers.