Three more races, three more winners and all change at the top of the leaderboard after another tough day at the office for the 21 crews competing for the Rolex Farr 40 Europeans. Once again it was all about minimizing risk and loss, trying to get a clean start and playing the shifts - far from easy in the 8 knots of breeze that atypically for a south-easterly in this region was far from warm. Not that the crews would have felt cold. The pressure was on from the first start or the day and did not let up until the finish. Only two boats in the fleet kept all three finishes in the top ten today, while Lang & Sue Walker's Kokomo from Australia stole into the overall lead posting scores of 5, 12 and 1. Kokomo is another crew using the European circuit as preparation for the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds scheduled for August in Copenhagen. Some crews must have wondered whether they were having a good or bad day, as the leaders in one race would find themselves the wrong side of a shift in the next and out the back door. Not only was picking the course side and the wind shifts a problem, in Race 2 Team Revolution struggled to get off the start line at all, when a crush near the pin left them hooked up to the buoy. Yesterday's leaders Norwegian Steam were caught up in the same melee and finished the race in 20th place, which served to open up the regatta once more after Eivind Astrup and crew looked to be nailing the door shut with a second in the first race of the day. Elsewhere, TWT (second overnight) suffered two poor results and the frustration of this must have been compounded when they incurred a penalty on the last run of the day and got the spinnaker halyard tangled as they executed their turn. But with every crew suffering at some point and the possibility of 5 races to go much of the fleet remains in with a chance.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Farr 40 Europeans
Three more races, three more winners and all change at the top of the leaderboard after another tough day at the office for the 21 crews competing for the Rolex Farr 40 Europeans. Once again it was all about minimizing risk and loss, trying to get a clean start and playing the shifts - far from easy in the 8 knots of breeze that atypically for a south-easterly in this region was far from warm. Not that the crews would have felt cold. The pressure was on from the first start or the day and did not let up until the finish. Only two boats in the fleet kept all three finishes in the top ten today, while Lang & Sue Walker's Kokomo from Australia stole into the overall lead posting scores of 5, 12 and 1. Kokomo is another crew using the European circuit as preparation for the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds scheduled for August in Copenhagen. Some crews must have wondered whether they were having a good or bad day, as the leaders in one race would find themselves the wrong side of a shift in the next and out the back door. Not only was picking the course side and the wind shifts a problem, in Race 2 Team Revolution struggled to get off the start line at all, when a crush near the pin left them hooked up to the buoy. Yesterday's leaders Norwegian Steam were caught up in the same melee and finished the race in 20th place, which served to open up the regatta once more after Eivind Astrup and crew looked to be nailing the door shut with a second in the first race of the day. Elsewhere, TWT (second overnight) suffered two poor results and the frustration of this must have been compounded when they incurred a penalty on the last run of the day and got the spinnaker halyard tangled as they executed their turn. But with every crew suffering at some point and the possibility of 5 races to go much of the fleet remains in with a chance.
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