Current European Champions poised to repeat

It was a scramble for both Gold fleets on Day 5 of the 2016 49er & 49erFX European Championships in Barcelona, Spain as both the winds and the teams were inconsistent.

Back on shore with the teams discussing the racing, mostly bemused discussions, those old enough to remember the 1992 Olympic Games brought out expressions like “Barcelona Banana” relating to the unforeseen slips ups. Ultimately, most explanations of the conditions only served to confirm what had happened rather offer any predictions of what would happen next.

Even with the shifts and puffs, or maybe because of them, the windward marks were especially busy as 25 of the best skiff crews in the world arrived in tight packs. In the third race for the fleets, a pack of boats arrived simultaneously, with the bottom two boats pinching wildly to make the mark and stacking up the rest of the fleet. The day was an edgy one all round, and it didn’t matter if a team was at the front or the back of the pack, 100% concentration and patience was required.

In the first race of the day Nathan Outteridge (AUS), Jonas Warrer (DEN) and Peter Burling (NZL), the three past medallist boats, showed they were on top of the game by taking the first three spots. In the next race however, the three were all below mid table, together, and not where they wanted to be. Outteridge commented, “We headed off the line and noticed it was looking pretty good the other way, but we were in a nice pack so we figured we would just go back with the group. By the time we all flipped over we were well out of it.”

In a buck to the day’s trend and now third overall with a 6, 4, 4 on the day, Austria’s Nico Delle Karth and Niko Resch managed three good races. “We wanted to commit to sides, as we felt the middle couldn’t work. Today it was possible to read the wind as there was enough cloud cover to see both sides of the course fairly, so we chose our side and had the legs to get there. It worked out as well as could be hoped,” said Resch.
 
New Zealand’s Logan Dunning Beck and Jack Simpson observed the same as the Austrians with regard to being able to spot the pressure, but had more trouble in their execution. In the second race they just about got it perfectly however as Beck explains, “We thought we were going to grab a win, but the Italians pinched us right on the line. It was fun to get a good one in.”

Over on the 49erFX course it was the same story, with few teams fully grasping the conditions. The Argentina’s Victoria Travascio and Maria Sol Branz along with New Zealand’s Alex Maloney and Molly Meech both had great days to move up in to contention for the win. Maloney and Meech are within striking distance of medals in fourth overall.

On top of both tables are the 2015 World Champions. Burling and Tuke are putting on another incredible display. Even with their blip in the second race they still managed to extend their monstrous lead by seven more points to 41. Outteridge and Jensen are getting back into the 49er rhythm after three straight weeks in the boat and sit reasonably comfortable in second with a 15 point gap behind them.

On the 49erFX side, it’s Guilia Conti and Francesca Clapcich (ITA) who are in the lead. They didn’t have their best day, but did better than Tamara Echegoyen and Berta Betanzos (ESP) who slip to third after leading going into the day. With only 11 points separating the top three, the 49erFX course will be the one to watch on the final day.
The 49er class has a fairly unique approach to the final day of racing. Scheduled is a monstrous three fleet races for each fleet and a medal race for each top ten. The aim is to start both gold fleets at 10:00 am local time, race three races, then have the gold fleets head to shore for protests while the silver fleet get three races in. Finally, the aim is to send the top ten boats out for a medal race to conclude the regatta. It’s an ambitious schedule even if things go perfectly, but in a place like Barcelona that relies on a sea breeze, if the racing starts later in the day the schedule must be reduced.

The intentions were made clear to the fleet that fleet racing will be the priority over medal racing, and the aim to get some silver fleet racing in, if possible, even if it means cutting the gold fleet to two, or even one race if the wind is particularly late.

For those looking to follow, the SAP analytics and live tracking system will have all the gold fleet and medal racing.  
Tracking, results, photos, video and more here – http://49er.org/2016-european-championship/