Dun Laoghaire's Saskia Tidey and Scotland's Charlotte Dobson consolidated their top position in the 49er FX with three top-five finishes in today's racing at the Olympic Regatta in Tokyo.
There was sun, plenty of breeze and waves with 14 knots of northerly building to 19kts through the day.
Dobson and Tidey (GBR) may not have won a race in the big waves today, but 4,2,5 scores keeps the British in the lead by five points from the Dutch, who had the best results from the outing.
Double World Champions Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz (NED) notched up two races wins and a sixth, looking very comfortable in the difficult conditions. Two points behind them are the reigning World Champions from Spain, Tamara Echegoyen and Paula Barcelo.
Bekkering admitted sailing the skiff in those waves is constant stress, "You can’t push the boat to 100%, otherwise you capsize, so it’s quite stressful concentrating so hard, but the stress is enjoyable too. It’s part of what makes sailing these boats so fun."
After racing Dobson, 35, from Rhu, Scotland, said: “These boats are just epic to sail in those big waves and when you delete from your brain the fact that it’s the Olympics and these are big waves and capsizes are expensive, they’re just the most phenomenal boats to sail. I think what we did quite well today was just focussing on doing all of our little processes.
“We call Sas the air hostess as we’re going down the massive waves because she’s in charge of the kite control. So it was quite a good day on Tidey Airlines today.
Dun Laoghaire's Saskia Tidey (right) and Scotland's Charlotte Dobson - three top-five finishes in today's racing at the Olympic Regatta in Tokyo
“There were times where it was definitely not boring, but I think we managed to keep doing our basics pretty well. And on a day like that with the big sea state, having three good counters is a really good day so we’re pretty happy.
“We’re feeling good. I think what’s really played out over the last couple of days for us is we’ve put so much work in the previous years to this of being really pernickety with the processes. Sometimes at the time they felt a bit over the top and a bit noisy, but what we’re feeling now is that we are ourselves on the water. We’re sailing the same boat that we’ve sailed for the last four years, we’re the same team, the same processes so it does feel really comfy. We’re leaning and playing on that a little bit at the moment.
“Looking forward to a rest tomorrow and then we’ll be back at it the next day.”
Saskia Tidey, 28, from Sandycove in Dun Laoghaire on Dublin Bay and a member of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, said: “Today was a big day for everyone on the racecourse. It feels really really long and the conditions here are really challenging, so every race you have to regroup, start from scratch and figure out what you’re about to get into. So it’s a good day, but right now we’re pretty knackered so we’ll need a few hours to settle into relaxing.”
