Fuente info Laser Worlds
Laser Radial World Championships 6-25th July, Largs, Scotland
- Press Information
Day 2: Full of Easterly challenges, Bouwmeester stays consistent. Rudawski wins twice.
Largs, Scotland Saturday 10th July: Largs delivered the Laser Radial World Championships competitors a testing measure of its notoriously difficult offshore, easterly breeze for the second day of competition on the Clyde estuary.
With the breezes gusting and swirling off the heather clad hills and down the glens at the back of the town of Largs the sudden changes in direction, and the pressure rising and falling on different sides of the race course, the challenge was especially difficult to stay consistent across the two races which both the Women and the Men’s fleets sailed today.
Even those who had a good day came ashore admitting how hard they had found it to read the breeze, to predict what was going to happen next, whilst there were several top seeded sailors who suffered a rollercoaster day – one good result and one bad one; even the odd horror show.
In the Men’s fleet Poland’s Marcin Rudawski, the reigning world champion, was on impressive form, later citing his speed as the key factor contributing most to his pair of wins today to lead the Men’s championship overall ahead of his compatriot Wojciech Zemke who sailed to a second and a first.
This duo have the same points aggregate, 3pts, and emerge today eight points clear of Korea’s Insub Kim.
In the Women’s Olympic class France’s Sarah Steyaert, who won the Laser Radial world title in Auckland in 2008, upped her challenge here when she won her first race of the day and then backed up her first win of the series with a third, to lift her to second overall.
Vital to the first race was being in a position to reap just the right amount of benefit from the right side of the course when the wind shifted right. At the top of the leg it had changed so much that some of those who had invested most heavily came reaching in to the windward turn. The second women’s contest saw the wind fade back slightly from the puffy 5-10 knots with bigger holes in the breeze to be avoided at all costs.
But the only sailor to manage to keep it solid, posting scores all in the top ten so far is Holland’s Marit Bouwmeester. Her fifth and seventh today ensures she retains her overall lead, but also discards a seventh in her armoury for the future. The world no 2 leads the top five which otherwise comprises four or past or reigning world champions.
Sari Multala (FIN) the current world champion was just one of the many who had an up and down day in the easterly. First race for her she won ahead of Scot Charlotte Dobson who came back strongly in the lighter breezes after a moderate opening yesterday, but Multala discards the 49th from her second race which she later described as ‘pretty terrible’.
Multala’s compatriot Tuula Tenkanen won the yellow fleet’s second race as did Poland’s Ewe Makowska in the blue fleet.
Olympic gold medallist Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) admitted later she just had not got her head round the conditions today, her 37th and discarded 50th sliding her down into the mid twenties overall.
Of Britain’s Skandia Team GBR sailors Ali Young scored a sixth and a discarded 18th and holds 11th whilst Dobson’s second place was paired to a hard won 32nd which she also discards and lies 18th overall.
Laser Radial World Championships, Largs, Scotland
Men Overall after Day 2, including one discard.
1 M Rudawski (POL) 1,(2),1,1, Nett = 3pts
2 W Zemke (POL) 1,1,(2),1, = 3pts
3 I Kim (KOR) 5,(8),4,2, = 11pts
4 Y Hummel (NED) 9,1,(24),2, = 12pts
5 B Koppelaar (NED) 9,4,1,(37) = 14pts
Women Overall after Day 2, including one discard.
1 M Bouwmeester (NED) 2,1,5,(7) Nett = 8pts
2 S Steyaert (FRA) (23),4,1,3, = 8pts
3 P Railey (USA) 3,1,4, (17), = 8pts
4 S Multala (FIN) 4,3,1,(49), = 8pts
5 T Drozdovskaya (BLR) 1,5,(14) 3, = 9pts
6 T Elias Calles Wolf (MEX) 4,(10),7,5, = 16pts
7 G Scheidt (LTU) 13,(19),2,4, = 19pts
8 T Mihelic(CRO) (15),8,3,8, = 19pts
9 A Lindberg(DEN) 7,4,9,(35), = 20pts
10 S Lihan(USA) 8,3,(10),10, = 21pts
