Light winds, Long day at Disabled Worlds

Halifax, NS (August 21, 2014) – It was a tough day for race officials and competitors on the water at the High Liner Foods IFDS Worlds 2014 underway at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. Northerlies that looked promising at the clubhouse in the morning died off and the sea breeze that normally builds in from the southwest took its time arriving today.

On the 2.4 mR course, the first race was abandoned. On the Sonar course, the winds which were as low as 2 kts at points, making for a long race. And facing the same conditions, the SKUD-18s also only sailed one race today.

There was one big upset. On the 2.4 mR course, Matthew Bugg of Australia grabbed a bullet today after four other races much further back in the fleet. Overall results for this fleet, however, have Heiko Kroeger of Germany in first place, Damien Seguin of France in second followed by Megan Pascoe of Great Britain in third.

On the SKUD-18 course, GBR’s Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell moved up into first place, Italy’s Marco Gualandris and Marta Zanetti are now in second place and the Australian team of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch sit in third after five races.

The Sonar teams are still led by the Canadian team of Paul Tingley, Scott Lutes and Logan Campbell. France has moved into second with the team of Bruno Jourdren, Nicholas Vimont-Vicary, and Eric Flaguel followed by GBR-1 John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas.

The top performance by an American team today was from the SKUD-18 duo of Ryan Porteous and Cindy Walker, who placed fourth today and now sit in sixth position in their fleet.

Teams are starting to zero in on the competition for country qualification for the Rio Paralymic Games in 2016. The top eight 2.4 mR sailors, top five SKUD-18 teams and top seven Sonar teams in Halifax will all win a place in the Paralympics for their countries. The remaining slots will be filled at the IFDS Worlds next year in Melbourne, Australia.

Racing continues daily through August 24.

Event website – Results

Report by event media.