Brits Hold the Lead at Fireball Worlds in Thailand

1st April 2014

#fireball – The Fireball fleet in Pattaya enjoyed another perfect day in paradise for day 3 of the World Championships being hosted by the Royal Varuna Yacht Club.
15 knots of breeze @210 degrees and a 3 knot tide running across the course – a tactician's paradise!
The Australian contingent led around the first weather mark in the form of Ben Schulz and Doug Sheppard who came in from the left with better pressure. They were followed by the British "Bs" – Birrell & Brearey and their compatriots Batchelor & Pascoe. Only a couple of boat lengths separated the leaders. The order remained the same for the triangle-sausage-triangle course and as if tied together by string, at each rounding mark only about six boat-lengths separated first and third.
Allison & Blenkle lost a rudder forcing their retirement while Jaline Thompson-Kambas & Cameron Philcox (AUS 15011) broke a main halyard and Kevin Luff (AUS 14265) went swimming (again)!
The second race of the day was sailed in "an uncharacteristically mature firm and unstable tropical breeze" which topped out at 20 knots in the gusts. The fleet was split equally left and right before Batchelor & Pascoe gained a significant lift in the last 200m of the beat to round in first place followed by Schulz & Sheppard and Gordon & Fletcher who had come in from the right hand side.
Schulz and Sheppard took over the lead but surrendered it again to Batchelor & Pascoe on the run. There appears to be a trend in this regard with the Aussies faster upwind and the Brits having the upper hand offwind. A peeling gasket slowed Schulz & Sheppard and saw them limp home in 3rd place behind Batchelor & Pascoe and Gordon & Fletcher.

Fireball Worlds, Pattaya, Thailand. (Provisional) R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Tot
1 Christian Birrell & Sam Brearey GBR 15107 1 1 dsq 1 2 4 9.0
2 Nathan Batchelor & Sam Pascoe GBR 15087 2 2 3 3 3 1 11.0
3 Ben Schulz & Doug Sheppard AUS 15062 4 4 4 2 1 3 14.0
4 Heather MacFarlane & Chris Payne AUS 15048 3 6 1 4 5 6 19.0
5 Thomas Gordon & Jack Fletcher AUS 15071 5 3 5 8 4 2 19.0

With the first discard kicking in, only five points cover the top three boats and with four races to sail after tomorrow's lay-day, there is everything to play for.

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