#optiworldsnz – Tralee's Sophie Browne got no chance to improve on her 13th overall when the last race of the Optimist World Championships in New Zealand was abandoned yesterday due to lack of wind. The only Irish competitor in the 208-boat competition has impressed all week with a plucky performance that kept her inside the top ten of the world's toughest youth fleet until the penultimate day, when she dropped from ninth to 13th.
Although finishing 13th overall, she was second girl overall which earns her the girl's silver medal.
The result is being hailed as a major success by her club Tralee Bay Sailing Club, the first time Ireland has faced world championship competition for over four years. During the week Irish support for Sophie came from all over the world including her club mate, the offshore sailing star Damian Foxall currently racing in the Volvo Ocean Race onboard Team Groupama.
The 2011 World Champion Optimist Dinghy Sailing is Kimberly Lim from Singapore.
The Delta Flag was raised at 10.41, meaning that racing would start at 11.41. It didn't take the 210 sailors long at all to get out onto the water. The wind was very mild, around 10 knots, but the sun came back out again.
Protests from yesterday's racing had been processed and when the updated provisional results were published, there was a change on the leadership board. Ryan Lo had to give up his third position to Javier Arribas who was previously fourth.
The first fleet started the race at 1208, but all reaces were abandoned at 1308. The wind was too light for the strong current and sailors were not able to make progress around the course. At 1350 the Race Committee decided to start race 12 again, but at 1427 the very hard call was made to abandon all races for the day which means that the World Championships are over.
The provisional leader board (for the individual racing) after 11 races shows: 1 Kimberly Lim (SIN) 70 points, 2 Bart Lambriex (NED) 74 points, 3 Javier Arribas (PER) 77 points, 4 Ryan Lo (SIN) 78 points, 5 Francisco Ducasse (CHI) 87 points, 6 Ahmad Syukri Abdul Aziz (MAS) 90 points, 7 Wade Waddell (USA) 96 points, 8 Gabriel Elstrodt (BRA) 109 points, 9 Rodrigo Luz (BRA) 112 points, 10 Leonard Takahashi-Fry (NZL) 114 points.
All our coverage of the Oppy worlds in New Zealand here
