Day 3 of the Fireball Worlds in Mossel Bay, South Africa, saw the competitors treated to a more genteel 10 knots southerly that built during the day to 17 to 20 knots for the third race. Sea conditions were reported as being flat initially but building to 2m swells by the end of the day. Results downloadable below.
Team GBR, Gillard & Anderton (GBR 15127), were in a class of their own winning all three races very comfortably. The Swiss pairing of Mermod and Moser (SUI 14799) made a clean sweep of the second places and Schulz & Lidgett (AUS 15113) taking two of the three third places. While the leaders were in a class of their own, the regatta Facebook site reports that there was competition in a number of groups throughout the fleet. While the fleet was tired by the time they got ashore, at least they had three races completed without the “survival instinct” being the dominant sentiment of the day.
Today, Wednesday, see the fleet enjoy a well-deserved rest day and judging by some of the individual Facebook posts, some of them are only too glad to see a day of no sailing……….and not necessarily due to on the water exhaustion.
Australian – Franco international relations have been put to the test at this regatta with the very late pairing of Jean-Francois Nouel and Scott Lidgett. Jean-Francois’ crew had to pull out of the event at very short notice due to a horse-riding accident and Scott flew in from Australia to team up with the Frenchman. They have had a challenging time in the big seas with capsizes and gear failure. But in his latest comment he says “I don’t know why everytime Scott K Lidgett pulls a rope it breaks down! Is he a monster man? It could not be a lack of maintenance on the French boat obviously.”
