Ireland's Olympic campaigners Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove are lying third after the first day of racing at Lanzarote International Regatta in the Canary Islands.
The Howth and Skerries duo opened their account with a race win and followed it with two solid six places in the 29-boat fleet. In the early stages of this regatta, it puts them well ahead of Irish rivals for the single Paris 2024 berth, Seafra Guilfoyle and Johnny Durcan, of Royal Cork Yacht Club, who are lying mid-fleet in 14th position after day one.
A young Austrian team, Keanu Prettner & Jakob Flachberger (AUT), made their mark on a world-class 49er fleet after winning the last two races of the three-race session in tricky conditions, westerly breeze of about 7 to 12 knots and big ocean swell.
“We managed to be fast out of the start line and we had good speed with some new sails,” said Prettner who has been sailing with Flachberger for three years. “Winning two races today, feels quite amazing, I hope we can keep it up this week. It feels good to have the reassurance that you’re going fast in these difficult conditions against such a high quality fleet.”
James Peters & Fynn Sterritt (GBR) sit in second place, 3 points behind the Austrians. “It’s really good to feel that pressure of racing again, after such a long time training,” said Peters. “That was good racing today and you can really see that Marina Rubicón and the organisers are working hard to turn this into a top-end competition.”
Fluky breezes and big seas
As for the challenges of the day, Peters said they were many, but highlighted three in particular. “Big swell, big shifts, and flaky breeze, and some or all of them came into play at different times. There were times when we were surfing upwind on waves, and you were underpowered trying to climb up a wave then overpowered as your surfed down the face of the wave. So there were times when we felt we weren’t on the right settings but we didn’t let it worry us, you just work with what you have.”
Behind the third-placed Irish team of Dickson & Waddilove winners of the opening race, are Diego Botin & Florian Trittel (ESP) “We’ve been training in Marina Rubicón for two months now, over the winter,” said Trittel. “You can sail pretty much every day here, you hardly lose a day of sailing and that’s what it was like today. We had a very untypical day, normally we have north-easterly breeze but today it was more from the south which made us have to wait but then the skies cleared and we ended up with three really good races. Our day was a keeper with a 5,2,5, which in such a strong fleet is a very good thing.”