The NZL Sailing Teams Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie have pulled into the lead of the womens 470 class at the ISAF Sailing World Cup event Skandia Sail for Gold. Despite the stormy weather, two races were sailed for this fleet and NZs London 2012 bound womens 470 sailors won both races, gaining a nine point advantage over the second placed French team.
The horrendous weather forecast prompted race officials to begin the day one hour early with hopes of getting races in for every fleet, but this was not the case. High winds cancelled racing for New Zealanders sailing the 2.4mR and Skud 18 Paralympic classes, the Star and Laser Radial silver fleet.
Paul Snow Hansen and Jason Saunders in the Mens 470 also had two races, still at the front of the pack but not enough to keep them in the lead. A third and tenth place finish in their two races have left them in 3rd overall, with one more day of final series before the double point medal race for the top ten on Saturday.
The Mens laser and RS:X fleets also got two full races in, while the RS:X women, 49er and Finn, had only one. The Womens Match Racing in the Elliott 6s completed the repechage round. Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt won five of their six races in this round, and will be progressing through to the quarter finals tomorrow, if the wind calms down enough to enable racing!
JP Tobin in the mens RS:X fleet saw wind speeds of up to 35kn in the afternoon before all other racing was called off. JP thrived in the big breeze, finishing both races in 4th place and improved his overall ranking to 7th.
In the Laser fleet, Andy Maloney had a fantastic start to the day winning the first race, but as the breeze built up in the second race he finished 11th. Andrew Murdoch placed 8th and 5th in the two gold fleet races with Andy, they are now ranked 7th (Andy Maloney) and 8th (Andrew Murdoch). Sam Meech dropped back one place to 20th.
Racing will start one hour later tomorrow, with hopes some of this weather system will pass through to allow the last series races before the Medal Round. One more good race for some (Peter Burling/Blair Tuke, Hamish Pepper/Jim Turner, Paul Francis) could mean they get through to the medal race which is only for the top ten.
SAIL FOR GOLD JUNE 8TH STANDINGS
470 (mens)
2nd Paul Snow Hansen and Jason Saunders (9, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 10)
470 (womens)
1st Jo Aleh and Olivia (Polly) Powrie (5,15, 3, 8,8,1, 1, 1)
49er
11th Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (3, 10, 14, 10, 7, 8, 2, 7, 4, 9)
13th Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski (7, 6, 1, 7, 9, 10, 8, 10, 6, 13)
Laser
7th Andy Maloney (15, 8, 17, 4, 4, 4, 1, 11)
8th Andrew Murdoch (15, 2, 10, 5, 20, 8, 8, 5)
20th Sam Meech (11, 17, 20, 8, 7,12, 17, 30)
Laser Radial
41st Sara Winther (19, 26, BFD, 19, 10, 12)
RS:X (mens)
7th JP Tobin (19, 6,14, 9, 9, 3, 4, 4)
RS:X (womens)
17th Natalia Kosinska (9, 10, 14, 17, 25, 44, 23)
23rd Steffanie Williams (25, 31, 21, 16, 15, 25, 20)
Star
11th Hamish Pepper and Jim Turner (8, 7,12, 11, 11, 8)
Womens Match Racing
Repechage round, 5 Win 1 Loss. Progressing to Quarter Finals
Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt
