Optimist Sailing Comes First On New Year's Eve

Thai sailors had a good last day of the year in the two races at the Optimist World Championships in Langkawi, Malaysia.

The competitors awoke to a slightly cloudy day with a light northerly wind on this, the second day of racing at the IODA 2010 World Championships. An early start was scheduled and the competitors made their way to the course in 8-10 knots.

The line had a slight port tack bias, but most of the boats were evenly distributed on the start line and the pin end chaos of day one was absent. The pressure was better up the course but was still nothing approaching what they had seen at the end of racing yesterday.

This was going to be another tough day where consistency would be so very important.

After 5 races, two sailors have begun to edge out in front – Jirawat Jadklay and Noppakao Poonpat both from Thailand. They are closely followed by Juh Yeong Kim from Korea, who has made one of the best ever starts to a world championship for a Korean sailor and then Marvin Frisch, Germany and Odile Van Aanholt from Netherlands Antilles.

A party was hosted by the organisers last night to celebrate the New Year, but on Saturday its back to the serious business of racing with three more races scheduled with a 10am start. Follow all the action at http://www.optiworld.org/MiniSite/