Optimist Worlds Sailing Day 3 & 4
Team Bermuda is enjoying a well deserved day-off following three more fleetraces on Day 3 of the 2010 Optimist World Sailing Championships in Malaysia on New Years Day. This was followed by a day of Team Racing yesterday before they took their break.
Day 3 – Fleet Racing – Saturday January 1st
Day three of fleet racing marked the beginning of the New Year. There had been some scoring corrections prior to Race 5 and the competitors were looking forward to dropping their worst score after completing Race 6, which would trigger even more movement on the scoreboard. At the end of the day Makai Joell was still the top Bermudian in 73rd place in the 231 boat fleet after scoring 23,37 and 46 for the day. Sam Stan moved up the leader board to 86th place with a 37, 32 ad 22. Ceci Wollmann had a strong Race 6 finishing in 18th position followed by a 62 and a 43 in the final 2 races of the day boosting her to 168th. Antonio Bailey sits in 181st place after he placed 54,42 and 76. Chase Cooper was over early at the start of race 6 scoring an OCS. The last two races of the day saw him finish 69th and 61st leaving him in 201st place.Two Thai sailors still are leading the Championship followed by Odile Van Aanholt from the Netherland Antilles in 3rd place and 1st girl.
Coach Zizi Staniul felt that it was perhaps one of the hardest days of racing thus far due to the wind velocity fluctuations. There were times were the breeze would drop to almost zero and then build again from a completely different direction. Also, there was the challenge of the current which when flowing in one direction, caused boats to be pushed over the starting line. He felt that on the whole Team Bermuda was starting better and that the rest days would allow valuable “downtime” for reflecting on their regatta performance to date and to begin refocusing the team’s efforts for the final days of the event.
Day 4 – Team Racing – Sunday January 2nd
Days 4 & 5 were scheduled for the Team Racing event. The Team Racing event is a two day “knock-out” tournament with each country fielding a four boat team and racing on a short course. Bermuda was seeded in the 26th position out of 43 teams based on the five sailor’s combined scores over the first 3 days of fleet racing. The team is pictured below on New Year’s Day:
Team Bermuda started off the day paired against Greece. Bermuda managed to beat Greece comfortably which set the stage for a match-up against power-house Singapore. Bermuda put up an excellent fight against Singapore and at one point late in the race it actually looked like Bermuda was going to beat them . Team Leader Anthony Bailey reported that, “it was very close for the entire race but in the end, a few tactical errors proved to be the difference.” In the third race Bermuda came up against Hong Kong. Bermuda got off to a good start with boats in first, second, fifth and seventh around the windward mark including a good overlap with the fourth HKG boat. Unfortunately, on the last upwind Bermuda lost the tactical advantage which ultimately signaled the end of our campaign. The winners of the day went on to the final round robin on Monday. Thailand was the eventual winner followed by Singapore and Peru.
Team Bermuda spent today [Jan 3] touring the island during their first day off. On Tuesday, which is the official spare day, the team will be training in the morning after which they will relax a bit in preparation for the final three days of racing. Fleet racing resumes on Wednesday January 5th.
More information, photos, updates and results available on the Team Bermuda Blog.
Photo attached of Team Bermuda on New Years Day.
