Turmoil in the Tornado Worlds - Day 2
by Richard Gladwell 5 Jan 2019 21:29 PST
6 January 2019
The fleet ashore after Race 4. Burvill and Puttman's three race winner Windrush is in the foreground. Rex and Brett Sellers are NZL-8 in the background behind the third placed AON NZL 84 (Tankard and Cooke) © Richard Gladwell
When the fleet returned to Takapuna Beach after Day 2 of the 2019 Int Tornado World Championships, the Australian crew of Brett Burvill and Max Puttman looked to have consolidated their lead after two days of racing in the series presented by Candida.
But they were successfully protested over an incident in the second race of the day, and Burvill and Puttman have dropped down to fifth overall in what is now a very tightly grouped fleet at the top of the leaderboard.
Two races were sailed in a fresh offshore breeze and flat water, with the crack Australian crew adding another two wins to their perfect provisional scorecard.
With four wins from four races, Burvill and Puttman had a provisional 18 point lead over the Swiss crew of Jorg Steiner and Michael Gloor who placed second in both of the races sailed on Sunday at Takapuna, Auckland. The Swiss now have three seconds and on current form, and with the alphabet scores of the leaders from Day 1, are now in with a real shot at the world title, once they can drop their 16th place from the opening race yesterday.
Burvill and Puttman can reclaim the top spot on the leaderboard if they continue to win races, and don't have any further errors. That performance will allow them to discard their maximum points DSQ from their scorecard. Currently, they are in fifth place overall but only six points from the top spot on the overall pointscore.
The German crew of Marcus and Nicolias Betz were not as well placed in the fresher breeze scoring a 10th place in the first race of the day, and 6th in the second. However thanks to the misfortune of others they lie in second place overall on the leaderboard.
The other beneficiary of the drama in the Jury Room was the New Zealand crew of Julian Tankard and former 470 world champion Simon Cooke who were promoted from third to second place in Race 4 and moved up from previous fifth overall to third on the overnight leaderboard. They are on equal points with the first Mixed crew of Zdenek Pavlis and Michaela Pavlisova (CZE), but the Kiwi crew lead after the application of a tiebreak formula.
It was a grim-faced Rex Sellers who came ashore after failing to finish the first race of the day, Race 3 after a mainsail traveller blew up. In Race 4 he was called as a premature starter, who didn't return to restart and scored maximum points for the second time.
Late Sunday afternoon, the 1984 Olympic Gold and 1988 Silver medalist was endeavouring to effect a permanent repair to the broken mainsheet traveller in order to be able to race again in Races 5 and 6 on Monday. The two maximum race scores have dropped Rex and Brett Sellers down to 13th Overall in the 23 strong fleet.
For updated results click here