Fireball World Championships at at Portoroz, Slovenia - Day 3
by Cormac Bradley 17 Sep 2013 12:30 PDT
13-20 September 2013
Morning rain didn't look promising, but the weather forecast luckily proved to be right. NE bora wind, usually coming with a nice, sunny weather, woke us up this morning with more than 30 knots. A bit too much, so our race officer postponed proceedings for 2 hours after which he signalled that the fleet should go afloat.
The start got under way at 2 pm, when the wind dropped to a pleasant 12-16 knots. Nevertheless, wind shifts and typical bora gusts were not at all easy to handle, so the two today's races were again tough ones.
Race 5 started under Oscar flag with the left and middle of the course favoured. Spinnaker reaches were exciting in these winds and good waves. The second race heavily favoured the right hand side, when a big shift came in from that side, leaving those, who went left, a major challenge to get back into the frame.
As the wind had dropped from the first race, the Oscar flag was put away for the afternoon. However, the reaches and the run still provided lots of excitement with the run in particular, providing lots of options to get to the leeward mark.
At the end of the third day the British still dominate the top of the leaderboard but the sequence of places has been shuffled. Now Tom Gillard and Simon Potts lead with 15 points from Dave Wade and Tim Hartley on 17 and Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey on 19 points.
Joerg Nolle and Roger Leemann lead the continental charge in the first race of the day behind a top ten British boat sequence. The first non-British boat in the second race was Milan Cap and Filip Prochizka from Czech Republic. Jaroslav Verner and Jakub Napravnik also finished inside the top ten.
After his 9th place in yesterday's second race, Fireballs most senior competitor Louis Smyth (76), took the competition to his fellow Irish Fireballers in today's first race. By the end of proceedings four Irish boats followed each other over the line, occupying places 19 to 22.
Please check www.gosailing.si for the official results, once they are finalised.