Each race counts in Hyères! The 2010 SOF Hyères has reached its half way mark but the programme is well behind schedule with few races sailed in each class. Irish sailors have failed to break into the top half of their fleets in the light conditions. Radial sailor Annalise Murphy lies in 76th of 80 after an OCS, Rory Fitzpatrick and Ross McDonald in the 49er are currently 51st of 58, James Espey is 78th of 141 Lasers and 470 pairing Rob Lehane and Thomas Mapplebeck are in 54th position in their 90-boat fleet.
Racing started and stopped a few times yesterday, before the sailors were sent back to shore to wait for the thermal wind to settle. It was close to 2PM when a 10 knots westerly breeze finally gave everyone any hope for racing. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay long and was gone three hours later. There was just enough time to run at least one race for all classes.
The last group in the Women Match racing finally completed their round robin, selecting the last two teams for the Gold fleet: They are number 3 on the World rankings, Kathie Spithill from Australia and the German team of Silke Hahlbrock,, 2009 Eurosaf Match racing champion. They join, World ranking leader Lucy Mcgregor (GBR), Anne Le Berre (GBR) , Skudina (RUS) and Tunnicliffe (USA). They will meet tomorrow in the Gold round robin to decide on the seeding for the quarter finals and will be joined by the top two from the repechage round. It will be the last chance for Claire Leroy (FRA), #2 in the world, to take a place among the top 8.
In the RS:X, yesterday’s leaders comforted their lead with one more race won by both Piotr Myszka (POL) and Bryony Shaw (GBR). With four races completed in both groups, the RS:X men will race their final series on Wednesday in Gold and Silver fleets.
Only three races are counted in the Lasers divided in three groups. A fourth race has been sailed for two groups and will be caught up by the third tomorrow morning. Olympic Champion Paul Goodison (Skandia team GBR) took the lead with one point over Athens Silver medallist, Andreas Geritzer (AUT) on equal points with Javier Hernandez (ESP), winner of the Trofeo Sofia Mapfre in Palma.
Susana Romero (ESP) conserves her top position in the Laser Radial, while Spanish team mate Fatima Reyes won the day’s only race, to climb into 4th place overall.
Sharing the course with the Laser radial is the Finn fleet. Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO), last year’s winner and European Champion, won the race, only the second in the series so far. Not a good race for nine sailor’s, penalised with a black flag at the start. This penalty took the lead away from Zach Railey (USA) now in 25th place. It was the second black flag for Austrian Florian Raudaschl!
While three races have been sailed in the 49er for the sailors in the yellow group, the blue group stayed ashore. The results are only counting two races. Young Belgium team of Yannick Lefebvre and Matthieu Janssens lead the rankings with a 6 points score.
The top three have increased their lead in the men 470. French pair Charbonnier/Meyer-Dieu are on equal points with Mantis/Kagialis (GRE). Anton Dahlberg and Sebastian Ostling place in third position after winning today’s race.
In the women division, the two races overall gives the lead to Japanese sailors Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata after they won the today’s race.
Guillaume Florent and Pascal Rambeau (FRA) won today’s race and are placed first in only their second event together in the Star.
Damien Seguin added one more win to his score while Helena Lucas remains in second place overall. Marcel de Veen Van, Mischa Rossena and Udo Hessels lead the Sonar fleet.
