Day 3 at the Etchells Worlds – Heats 3 and 4
More on than the early settlers today here in San Fran. Just for a change, it was quite windy (again) and we had two races.
Today we carded a 10 and a 4. It moves us up to 5th overall with no drops, but we are 8th with a drop counted. We have not had any really bad races, but not enough really good ones either. Anyway… great sailing again today. The first race was 12-14 knots and the second race started in 15 knots and finished in 22 knots…nice.
Two teams moved out from the fleet today. Shark Kahn’s and Jud Smith’s teams look like fightin it our for the title, unless one of them has a “major” over the next two days. Stuart Childerly won the first race today and looked like really challenging for his third world title, but the second race today saw him complete a penaly turn soon after the start and he finished 20th this arvo. That being said. he is only 5 points off the lead with a drop.
Today saw an Aussie mate drop out of contention. Rodney Hagebols has put in a big campaign sailing with Jeff Pape of San Diego. They had an OCS (after placing 3rd) in Race one. In races 2 and 3 they had a 3rd and a 4th. In race 4 today they broke their boom, so it’s all over. Bad luck Hagis.
The other teams are placed 12th (defending champ Pete Mcneil), 15th (Midwinter champ Sir Robert Brown) with the next best in 30th (Rob Bird from Perth).
Tonight has een a very lean night, as the entire fleet weighs in tomorrow morning from 7am. So, for us that means no dinner (although I did have a couple of rums) and a Bushman’s Breakfast (a piss a quick look around). Needless to say we are close (read: over) the weight limit.
More tomorrow…
September 8th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
Nice job race 4, just starting to fire up, good luck