Pom Parade

British sailors took first place in both qualifying races today in Day 5 of the CST Composites International 14 World Championship.

Defending World Champion Archie Massey and his crew Dan Wilsdon recovered from their breakages of yesterday and posted solid win in race one for the day. It was a lead from the front effort from the British sailor in a 8-12kt sou’easter.

Massey and Wilsdon relished the light to moderate seabreeze and generally flat conditions on the harbour to record a comfortable win ahead of Australian Ron Scherwinski and his crew James Lanati with Lindsay Irwin and Andrew Perry third.

In race two, it was the British pair of Robert Greenhalgh and Phil Harmer who cleared out early but they were forced to work hard for their win by a pack of Australians chasing hard. One of those chasing was Ben Austin with crew Peter Nicholson who looked to be threatening but they came unstuck in at the first spinnaker hoist which ended in a capsize that cost nearly a dozen places.

South Australian Dave Alexander and his crew Cameron Mcdonald finshed second in race two ahead of Britain’s Tom Heywood and crew Ed Clay.

The first leg of today’s windward-leeward course was 1.5 nautical miles long and Massey/Wilsdon went round in 71min while Greenhalgh/Harmer were three minutes quicker in the afternoon race… perhaps due to a slightly stronger seabreeze of around 10-16kts. thanks to Christophe Launay for the cool shot.