Lyttle Moves Up to Sixth in Laser Grand Masters Division

10th September 2018

The scene seconds before the start of a Laser Master Worlds race at Dun Laoghaire Credit: Afloat.ie

The National Yacht Club's Mark Lyttle discarded a 19th place scored in the fourth race of the series this afternoon to lie sixth overall in the Grand Masters division of the Laser Masters World Championships on Dublin Bay.

Next best to Lyttle is Belfast Lough's John Simms in 25th with Royal Irish Yacht club's Justin Maguire 26th. Grand Master results are here.

In the Radial Master division, Sean Craig of the host port lies fifth. See Radial results here.

Adding two further race wins to his tally, Australia’s Brett Beyer continued to dominate the Standard rig Master class. Royal Cork's Nick Walsh is best of the Irish here in 20th place.

Despite a shifting breeze that gusted from ten to over 20 knots at times, Beyer’s bid to defend his 2017 title showed no loss of his opening day form as he sailed in clear air ahead of his nearest challengers in the 60-boat class.

Elsewhere in the 302-strong event, the Grand Masters class proved that age is no barrier to Sailing’s naughty-step with no fewer than 14 Black Flag disqualifications after the opening race of the day required five general recalls with racing delayed more than an hour.

The fleet is also grappling with the biggest Spring tides of the year with a strong ebb flow adding to the challenge of the fresh to strong winds.

Despite receiving one of the Black Flag disqualifications, Sweden’s Tomas Nordqvist remains atop the Grand Master class after the weighty penalty was dropped when the discard came into play.

Amongst the Great Grand Masters, two wins for Germany’s Wolfgang Gerz keeps him ahead of Australia’s Mark Bathwaite by two points. And two wins for Canada's Gord Welsh sees him ahead on tie-break with Spain's Leandro Rosado for the Laser Standard apprentice class.

Australia’s Scott Leith added two further wins in the Radial Master class while in the Grand Masters, Britain’s Stephen Cockerill leads this 57-strong division by five points after a mixed day afloat.

“It was a pretty tough day out there,” Cockerill admitted afterwards. “If you played the middle it was deadly. I rounded the first mark in 40th place and it was a fight to get back up the fleet (eventually to 16th for the first race). The plan for the regatta has to be at the top mark in the top few boats.”

Marking his debut year in the Grand Master division, Cockerill went on to score his third win of the series in the second race of the day and remains ahead of Australia’s James Mitchell.

After two days of 20 knot westerly winds, Tuesday’s forecast offers the prospect of another testing day ahead of Wednesday’s welcome break in the schedule. Ironically, the conditions are expected to ease off for the day before building steadily towards a gale by Saturday evening.

Full results are here

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About the ILCA/Laser Dinghy

The ILCA, formerly known as the Laser, is the most produced boat in the world, with 220,000 units built since 1971.

It's easy to see why the single-handed dinghy has won the title of the most widely distributed boat of all time.

The Laser is a one-design dinghy, the hulls being identical but three rigs that can be used according to the size and weight of the sailor.

The class is international, with sailors from 120 countries. The boat has also been an Olympic class since 1996, being both the men's and women's singlehanded dinghy.

Three rigs are recognised by the International Laser Class Association (ILCA):