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2006
LASER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Jeju, Korea |
Laser Senior Worlds 12 - 20 September 2006
Report: Day
6
A great day afloat
For the Race Committee, Jury and volunteer coaches the 6th day of the Jeju Laser World Championships began at 0615 to start the process of returning all the evacuated boats back to the beach to be ready for racing. At the same time all race committee boats where re-launched.
This was completed by 1030 at which stage the scheduled start was postponed for 1 hour to allow the sailors time to prepare their boats after the passing of typhoon ShanShan.
Racing finally got underway at 1230 in a 15 knot offshore wind and the fleets split into gold and silver groups. The large easterly swells of previous days had disappeared to be replaced with a short chop.
In the first gold fleet race the boats that were at the committee boat end of the line tacked soon after the start. This group included Deniss Karpak EST and Michael Leigh CAN. Leigh said that he was clear to tack not long after the start and he held on until he was headed when he came back onto starboard and the just worked the hifts to round the first mark second behind Karpak. Meanwhile most of the other race leaders had worked the left hand side of the course and got caught by a right hand shift towards the end of the first leg. Overall first and second place holders, Tom Slingsby and Michael Blackburn from Australia, both had bad starts but Blackburn admitted surprise that he was able to recover to fourth after doggedly working the shifts.
Karpak was passed by Leigh on the first downwind leg and then by Milan Vujasinovic CRO on the second upwind leg. Leigh extended his lead to finish first with no further change in 2nd and 3rd.
In the second race of the day Thomas Le Breton FRA and Paul Goodison GBR both had good starts and sailed to the left initially when most of the fleet went right. They then went up the middle and got the last shift right to be a comfortable first and second at the first mark. Goodison said " after rounding Thomas and I had a very good race but were lucky to stay ahead of the fast finishing Australians (Slingsby and Blackburn)".
In view of the previously challenging weather conditions the race committee have scheduled three races for Tuesday, the penultimate day of the championship.
Overall results after 6 races with one discard.
1. Tom Slingsby AUS 7 pts
2. Michael Blackburn AUS 12 pts
3. Scott Giles GBR 26 pts
4. Michael Leigh CAN 28 pts
5. Andrew Murdoch NZL 29 pts
6. Rasmus Myrgen SWE 32 pts
7. Gustavo Lima POR 33 pts
8. Thomas Le Breton 35 pts
9. Bernard Luttmer CAN 35 pts
10.Paul Goodison GBR 36 pts
Full results: www.laserinternational.org