Black Flags and Tetchy Starts on Day Two

The second day of the Safaricom World Fireball Sailing Championships was characterised by difficulties in getting the races off, with three starts for each of races 3 and 4.

After two general recalls for race 3 the Race Officer put up the black flag. The race started with three competitors, all from Britain, given OCS (on course side), attracting 39 points: Horey/Turner, Pearce/Keeling and Davies/Jump.

For race 4 the black flag went up on the second attempt at starting but there were still a number of competitors on the course side. The Race Officer recalled the boats and at this point sent six boats back in: event leaders Howarth/Townend, Hemmings/Chesney, Davies/Jump, Pearce/Keeling, and Kenya boats Bush/Bush and Shaw/Hurn, who all went in for an early tea. Howarth and Hemmings both had their protests against the Race Committee turned down.

Winds were lighter than previous days, especially for the first race of the second day, but conditions still provided good sailing.

With the Howarth and Townend cats away, the 4th race let the mice out to play, and Wade and Wagstaff were first, McCarthy and McCusker from Ireland second and the newly arrived French boat of Juin and Loyal third.

Kurt Venhoda and Sonia Zaugg were the first boat for Switzerland, improving from a 17th in race 3 to 7th in race 4. For Kenya, Trundell and Hime had one or two beats which they would not have been altogether satisfied with, but were usually able to achieve their now-customary miracle of overtaking many boats on the first reach. In the first day’s sailing their best efforts resulted in overtaking some 11 boats; yesterday they managed perhaps 9 or 10 at one blow. We are told they are practising a casual wave as they go by…

Son and father team Joachim and Roger Bebbington for Kenya had their moment of glory on the first day of the Worlds, when they reached the windward mark at the head of the fleet, even in front of the powerful Howarth/Townend boat, and eventually achieving their best position to date at 18th. In the second day they fared a little less well but could still feel happy with how they were going.

Tuesday is a Lay day with racing continuing on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.