Today’s course was W5: Sausage, Triangle, Sausage, Triangle, Sausage, then beat to finish.
Is that a fish covered in fake tan? No, it was a shorter ‘Zog’ (Adam Ovington and Stu Keegan) retying their trapeze wires before starting. They were checking everything from their elevated position on the podium even right at the start!
They had a good setup. Off the line from the middle position, they pulled the trigger-sploosh! There went Zog’s other trap wire. Remember the five P’s guys!
We started above a US boat which is often not ideal as they tend to gybe hard on their daggerboard and slowly point upwind.
Tacking out put us on the right side while Andy & Rob were pushing ahead of us. Glen & Ed looked solid out left side. With so much leverage available on this course it could have gone either way. At the top mark it seemed like ‘Chilli con Carbon’, GER 10 (Basti “Mr Tiki Bar” and Pilski “the German submarine”) was leading but after some shifts in wind direction it was Glen & Ed’s blue kite that came first downwind. Chilli hit the mark but spun out setting up an intense battle with Andy & Rob.
The racing today was very close and challenging-from fully powered up twin wiring to struggling in choppy conditions. Lots of tight personal duels took place as boats adjusted to changing gears based on wind shifts. The International 14 class allows for finding new modes quickly when wind conditions shift because of its adjustable rigging.
Some nail-biting triangle legs featured daring high modes alongside some silly teabagging moments too! After ten days of hard sailing, boats were much closer together than before.
At the bottom of our fifth beat today, young Germans led aboard an old Bieker 5 that looks amazing with its fancy sails. The future is bright for this German fleet since their second place finish is noteworthy in team racing.
Andy & Rob placed second while executing clean tacks against Glen & Ed-a true America’s Cup style face-off! The B6 (Andy & Rob) proved agile during tacks compared to Hollom (Glen & Ed). The Germans opted for a split which didn’t work out well for them this time around. In summary: Andy & Rob won while Glen & Ed took second.
With two days remaining just one point separates our top two teams! Meanwhile Stu and Adam aboard Zog climbed back into third place at twenty-five points overall after avoiding any penalties so far-they can discard today’s race result contributing to an all British podium situation now emerging here too! Meanwhile Canadian competitors Lauren Laventure & Jason Lemieux along with Olympians Mariah Millen & Justin Barnes are eager to break this British dominance as we head into Thursday’s big race forecasted!
Two more races are still scheduled ahead so keep track via www. instagram. com/international.14 or www. instagram. com/corkkingston
(function (d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d. get Elements By Tag Name(s)[0]; if (d. get Element By Id(id)) return; js = d. create Element(s); js. id = id; js. src = “//connect. facebook. net/en_GB/all. js#xfbml=1& app Id=215421185135795”; fjs. parent Node. insert Before(js, fjs); } (document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source link
(function (d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d. get Elements By Tag Name(s)[0]; if (d. get Element By Id(id)) return; js = d. create Element(s); js. id = id; js. src = “//connect. facebook. net/en_GB/all. js#xfbml=1& app Id=215421185135795”; fjs. parent Node. insert Before(js, fjs); } (document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source link
