Short, sharp day for Laser fleets

A very fluid weather pattern (in more ways than one) made for a challenging, albeit short, day on the water for the Laser and Laser Radial fleets.

The threat of thunderstorms kept the fleet ashore through the early afternoon. Once the sailors launch, the compressed time left the sailors with little time to properly research the breeze. Adding to the confusion, the weather changed just as the Radials were halfway up the first leg.

“In the beginning it was quite light,” said Evi van Acker (BEL). “But then the rain came and along came the wind. So it was quite windy in the race, which was nice to have a little bit of difference compared to the first three days.”

It was also quite shifty and, with the visibility reduced, tough for the sailors to formulate a plan of attack. As is often the case in difficult conditions, the cream rose to the top, with Marit Bouwmeester (NED) nipping Sarah Gunni Toftedal (DEN) by just two seconds and adding to her impressive string of four first-place finishes in the qualifying races. But Bouwmeester was hard-pressed to describe how she won the race.

“I don’t really know,” she said. “The weather was quite tricky with the rain so I think I was just a bit lucky being on the right side of the wind shifts.”

Bouwmeester, who won the silver medal at the 2012 Olympics and the 2015 Laser Radial World Championships, is probably being modest. But the day did have one significant, and totally unexpected, hurdle that she handled with a veteran’s poise.

“A 470 trailer, they didn’t put it up right after the 470 went into the water and it fell down and it fell straight through my sail,” she said. “So just before [launching] I had a hole in the sail. But thank God it didn’t influence the racing too much

“I didn’t like it. I was like, ‘Bloody 470s.’ But there’s not much I can do about it. This guy gave me some sail tape and I tried to cover it up as good as I can.”

In third in the race, and sitting solidly in second overall was van Acker, who was a little more expansive when asked about the path to success in Race 6.

“I think play the shifts on the first beat and the first reach and the downwind,” she said. “But I could’ve done a bit better. So not super happy with today, but plenty to play for tomorrow.”

Van Acker is the defending Olympic bronze medalist, but there’s a lot of Laser Radial talent in Belgium and she won’t know whether she’ll return to the Olympics until late spring.

“We have a selection committee that will decide at the end of May or the beginning of June,” she said. “But as I said, I’m not really busy with the selection, just trying to do my best in every race.”

Currently sitting third in the overall standings is defending Olympic gold medalist Lilja Xu (CHN) who finished 35th, by far her worst race of the regatta. After discarding that finish she is just two points out of second and eight points off the lead.

Paloma Schmidt was the only South American sailor, who had not yet qualified for Rio 2016, to make the Laser Radial gold fleet. As a result, she has qualified Peru in the Laser Radial.

North American sailors from the Cayman Islands, Cuba, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago missed out on the gold fleet as Bermuda’s Cecillia Wollman and Mexico’s Natalia Montemayor advanced.

Nine points separated them before Thursday’s racing but they ended up even on 95 points apiece after the single race. Wollman finished 39th and Montemayor, 40th. Results would lead to suggest some strong tactics coming in to play with three races on Friday to determine who will go to Rio de Janeiro this August.

After sailing a nearly flawless qualifying series, Rutger van Schaardenburg (NED) had his first significant bobble of the regatta when he was caught over the line before the gun and didn’t return to start correctly, recording a 50-point OCS. As he’s able to discard that score, he retains the overall lead, but the margin has narrowed. Jean-Baptiste Bernaz (FRA) is currently second overall after getting a fourth today.

While the Radials started in light breeze, the wind had picked up substantially by the time the Lasers started sailing. Still, the weather was difficult to read.

“I didn’t have [a really solid plan for the first beat],” said Bernaz. “I just say, ‘OK, let’s sail and watch; what you see is what you get.’ I was on the right, but when I saw the left gaining, I just go on the left side of the fleet. I was losing a lot and I re-gained what I lost. I was fourth at the top mark, third, then fourth again. It’s good to sail in front.”

Bernaz has been on a tear of late, with top-five finishes in his four of his last five major regattas. The lone blip, a 54th at the 2015 Laser World Championships, has knocked his world ranking down to 22nd, but he’s sailing like a medal contender at this event.

“It’s the year of the games, some [Olympic selection series] for different countries, so everyone is 100 percent, maybe 110,” he said. “It’s a really hard fleet and it’s really hard to be consistent. Now we start the finals, so it’s the top 49, so it’s really hard, really compact.”

Sailing to his fourth second in the last four races, five-time Olympic medalist Robert Scheidt (BRA) moved into third in the overall standings.

“The first few races I had bad starts and it was difficult conditions, it was shifty and light, and I just made bad decisions at the beginning of the race,” he said. “I knew I had the speed to do better and the ability to do better. From the third day I started to sail more with the fleet, more consistent, better starts.

“Today was a full-on race, it started to blow very hard just a few minutes before the start and we knew we’d have to be out of trouble, have a clean start, and use the speed and hike hard. It was a tough race. The breeze kept increasing throughout the race. I just sailed clean, sailed a solid race. I’m really happy about that.”

Scheidt won three medals in the Laser class, a gold in 1996 and 2004 and a silver in 2000 before switching to the Star, where he won a silver in 2008 and a bronze in 2012. With the Star eliminated from the Olympic roster, he was forced to choose between missing the Rio Olympics or returning to the grueling 14-foot dinghy,

“The goal is to try to do the Olympic Games in my home country,” he said. “Unfortunately the Star is not anymore an Olympic class. I wish it was. It’s not easy to come back to the Laser after a certain age. But I’m enjoying it. I’m still having fun out there. I’m still competing at a high level. Of course, it’s not easy because physically it’s a quite a demanding boat. Right now I’m in a good moment, free of injuries and really looking forward to the next six months.”

He hasn’t been as dominant as he was at his peak, when he won eight world championships, but Scheidt is a serious medal threat, and anyone who thinks the pressure of competing in his home country will compromise his performance should check Scheidt’s track record. Among other things, his final Laser world championship was won on Brazilian waters. He knows what to expect, and how to handle it.

“It’s going to be a different Olympics with the crowd the expectations, competing in Rio, a place I’ve sailed all my life, for an Olympic medal,” he said. “It’s going to be very special. That’s why I’m still doing it. That’s the reason why I’m still training hard, pushing hard. To be able to join the Olympics one last time would be a great thing for me.”

Mexico’s Yanic Gentry made the gold fleet in the cut and with none of his rivals from Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico making it, he has qualified his nation in the Laser.

All of the South American sailors aiming for Rio 2016 are in the silver fleet and no racing was possible on Thursday. As it stands, Venezuela’s Jose Gutierrez is 65th on 139 points, Uruguay’s Federico Yandian 66th on 140, Ecuador’s Matias Dyck on 145 and Colombia’s Andrey Quintero 84th on 180.

By Daniel Smith, World Sailing and Stuart Streuli, Sailing World Cup Miami

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