Lighter Breeze for 420 Worlds

Published on December 30th, 2017

Fremantle, Australia (December 30, 2017) – Race day 2 at the 2017 420 World Championships hosted at Fremantle Sailing Club, Australia and all change in the weather as the breeze eased and the wave action was a lot more manageable.

Spain’s Maria and Pilar Caba set the standard in today’s Ladies fleet, racking up a 1,2 scorecard. Australian champions Laura Harding and Eleanor Grimshaw were much more relaxed in today’s conditions, sailing consistently for consecutive third placings. At this early stage of the regatta, Nia Jerwood and Monique de Vries hold the lead by a single point from the Spanish partnersihp, with just one point between each of the Spanish team and then Harding and Grimshaw.

Maria Pilar commented after today’s race, “Today the first race was twelve knots and it was our wind. So we managed to do a good start and at the end we finished first. In the second one the wind was about 15 knots. The Australian girls did really well and we fought with them and in the end we managed to place second.”

The Under 17 fleet should have been a walk in the park for the Spanish crew of Martin Wizner and Pedro Ameneiro, who finished first and second in their two races, but unfortunately were disqualified from their first race after crossing the start line early. The costly mistake saw them slip to seventh on the points table after four races. Italians Tomasso Cilli and Bruno Mantero move to the top of the table after winning race 4 today, just clear of the German crew of Florian and Maximilian Buscher.

Reigning U17 European and Junior European Champions, Demetrio Sposato and Gabriele Centrone of Italy share points with the Buscher boys and just behind them is a third Italian crew of Tomasso Salvetta and Giovanni Sandrini. There is enormous talent in this young fleet as boats were constantly challenged and trading places.

The Open fleets, having lost a race yesterday, are now back on track, completing three races this afternoon. Italians Edouardo Ferraro and Francesco Orlando were dominant in the yellow fleet today.

With the breeze around 12 knots at the start, they posted a second place but as the breeze freshened to 15 and later 18 knots, they were unbeatable and racked up two first places which takes them to a share of the lead with Chris Charlwood and Josh Dawson, who sailed in the blue fleet scoring a third, a first and a second. Three Spanish crews follow the Italians and Australians, highlighting the enormous depth in the ever talented Spanish 420 fleet.

The weather forecast for tomorrow might make the heavy weather specialists happy. Strong southerlies will once again take conditions to near the limit for the 420 class, generating much higher waves than seen on day 2.

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About the 2017 420 World, Ladies World and U17 World Championships
The 2017 420 World, Ladies World and U17 World Championships, 26 December 2017-3 January 2018, is hosted at Fremantle Sailing Club, Perth, Australia.288 sailors from 18 nations are competing, with 64 boats in the 420 Open fleet, 39 in the 420 Ladies and 41 in the U17.

The 420 Open teams are split into two fleets for a 6 race qualification series and 6 race final series, with a single race discard coming into play after race three. Teams contesting the Ladies and U17 World Championships race a single series of 12 races.

144 teams from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey are competing.

About the International 420 Class Association
The 420 is an established worldwide performance two-person trapeze and spinnaker racing dinghy which holds status as an International Class and Learn-to-Sail boat.

A performance two-person spinnaker racing dinghy for youth, the 420 has been selected as the youth development class in over 45 nations around the world. The 420 is an important choice to develop sailing and sailors’ skills in strategy, tactics, boat handling, tuning and technique and is very accessible, demanding skills easily obtained by sailors in developing nations.

The 420 Class has trained many of the world’s best sailors and is a proven transition class, whatever your next step in sailing, dinghy or multihull, keelboat or skiff.

Source: Bernie Kaaks / Fremantle Sailing Club

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