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23 September 2005, 12:44 pm

Tight Finish On The Cards

Grove Fruit Juice One Metre World Championship 2005

Quad Park, Mooloolaba, Australia

With the lay day over action at the Grove Fruit Juice 2005 World IOM Championship continued at Quad Park, Mooloolaba, Australia, with picture perfect warm sunny conditions and a consistent light easterly greeting the competitors for the fifth day of racing yesterday. Craig SMITH (AUS) leads the overall standings after 18 races, closely followed by Martin ROBERTS (GBR) and Graham BANTOCK (GBR).

Sailing on course three a total of four races were completed during the day in the radio controlled One Metres.

After completion of sailing there was only slight rearrangement in the placings of the top five with Paul JONES (AUS) trading places with Peter STOLLERY (GBR) to move from fifth to fourth. With only 14 points separating the top five the Championship is still open with two days of sailing to go.

BANTOCK was back in form yesterday with the lowest score of the day of twelve points, four better than ROBERTS and a further two ahead of JONES.

After the five days of racing SMITH still leads with 66 points from ROBERTS on 70 and BANTOCK on 72. JONES on 79 and STOLLERY on 80 are still not out of the picture. With a further drop due after completion of race 19 the gap should close further with BANTOCK having the greatest discard.

The first five placed skippers are sailing five different One Metre designs - SMITH the Obsession; ROBERTS the Gadget; BANTOCK the Topico, JONES the Cockatoo 2; and STOLLERY the Isotonic - with no particular design appearing to have any significant edge over the full range of conditions experienced

The weather forecast for the remainder of the regatta is predicting fine days and maximum temperatures of around 25°C and light to moderate breezes tending more northerly.

Event Media (As Amended By ISAF)