Patience And Glanfield Take Early Victory Whilst Austrians Out In Force In Santander

Northerly winds are still insisting in being the main dominator of the Ciudad de Santander Trophy, the test event for the Santander 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships.

On the fifth day of the event, the race committee had to postpone in port for all classes until the wind conditions were clear. At around 13:00 the flag came down for the boards and a few minutes later for the 49er.

As soon as the wind built up to 6 knots of wind speed, the Laser and 470 made their appearance in the bay of Santander. It wasn’t until at around 15:00 that the Finn class started and mid-afternoon it was the Nacra 17 turn for the Foxtrot racing area.

Ahead of the final day Luke Patience and Joe Glanfield (GBR) take an unassailable lead into the Medal Race. They lead on 37 points, 23 ahead of Finland’s Joonas and Niklas Lindgren with Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergstrom (SWE) in third.

“It’s been a while since I can remember doing a regatta where you win with a day to spare – it’s certainly Joe and I’s first. It’s nice,” said Patience.

“We’ve had a great year. We came out of the blocks at our first regatta and stood on the podium, and here we are at our final regatta of the year with another gold medal.”

In the Women’s 470 Lara Vadlau and Jolanta Ogar (AUT) have a three point lead over Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (GBR) going into the Medal Race.

Vadlau and Ogar are part of a 14-strong Austrian team that are competing at the Ciudad de Santander Trophy to gain knowledge for next year.

The pairs team mates Benjamin Bildstein and David Hussl sit third in the 49er, just nine points behind leaders Diego Botin and Pablo Turrado. But as Bildstein said, it’s not all about the result at the test event, “For us the plan is to get some more information on the water and the wind here. We want to be prepared for next year and taking an Olympic ticket. The wind is good, sailing is really nice and we will look forward to a good event next year.

“For us it’s been a big surprise that the 49er has been sailing offshore so we have big waves, big swell which are not typical conditions for the 49er because it is quite tricky and hard to handle. We know now we need to prepare for next year and know how it is with the tide and current because every day is different. We will train one more time here before Santander 2014.”

Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond (GBR) continue to lead the Nacra 17 but keeping on their heels is Thomas Zajac and Tanja Frank (AUT).

The Austrians are currently World #1 in the Nacra 17 rankings but continue to learn their trade ahead of the ISAF Worlds in Santander next year, “It’s a nice port but a difficult place to sail but it’s very nice and we have been learning a lot,” said Frank.

Frank won 420 gold with Lara Vadlau at the 2011 ISAF Youth Worlds in Zadar, Croatia and has made the switch to sail with Zajac and the pair have come on well, “It was quite difficult to learn how to sail the multihull but it’s a very nice boat, very fast and big fun.”

“We will need to train here again. We will have to train a lot here to be good. It’s our goal to be in the top ten nations next year and I think we are on our way.”

The Lasers took to the race course for their second day of racing with Great Britain’s Nick Thompson leading the way with 11 points, Juan Ignacio Maegli (GUA) follows a point behind with Jesper Stálheim (SWE) a further point back.

Manami Doi (JPN) leads the Radial fleet on nine points followed by Cagla Donertas (TUR) and Chloe Martin (GBR).

The two categories of the RS:X started their next to last race, before the Medal race on Sunday, followed by the Finn who have finalized their participation.

In Men’s RS:X the Dutch Dorian Van Rijsselberghe with 13 points is the leader with a clear advantage. The second place is for the French Julien Bontemps with 22 points and in third place the Spaniard Iván Pastor. The leader of world ranking for the RS:X class is justifying his position with a total score of 31 points.

In the Women category for RS:X Charline Picon is marking a distance in the podium with a total of 12 points . In second place Maayan Davidovich from Israel with 22 points and in third position the also French Eugénie Ricard with a total of 24 points, close to Bryony Shaw with 27 points.

The Finn have completed their races, being Josh Junior from New Zealand with 9 points in second place the Spaniard Alejandro Muscat with 18 points and in third place Terpigorev Egor with 19 points.

View Highlights here

Results

Santander 2014 Website

Action from the Ciudad de Santander Trophy, the test event for the 2014 ISAF Worlds that will be held in Santander, Spain.

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