Strong winds at Delta Lloyd Regatta

Medemblik, Holland (May 28, 2015) – The third day of the Delta Lloyd Regatta brought stronger winds and steeper waves, making it the most physically challenging day so far for the 707 teams competing in the 10 Olympic and 3 Paralympic events.

Damien Seguin appears unstoppable in the 2.4mR Paralympic singlehanded keelboat. The Frenchman has won five of the six races, and leads 2nd placed Heiko Kroger of Germany by 6 points. In the SKUD doublehanders, Great Britain leads by a point over Australia, and in the Sonar triplehanded keelboat, France is tied on points with Australia.

In the men’s and women’s skiff fleets, there was plenty of capsizing in the 20-knot-plus winds. The Spanish team of Diego Botin and Iago Lopez won two heats in the men’s 49er, but Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski won the final race and have retaken the overall lead. The FX fleet is dominated by the Dutch, with Annemiek Bekkering and Annette Duetz still on top.

No one is dominating the Nacra 17 catamaran. Allan Norregaard and Annette still lead, although Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders from NZ had the best day in the challenging conditions to score 2,1,1, putting them in 4th overall and within striking distance of the podium.

Ireland’s Annalise Murphy recovered from two bad starts with some awesome boatspeed to score 1,3 in the women’s Laser Radials. But the 2012 Olympic silver medallist, Marit Bouwmeester, matched Murphy’s scores and the Dutch sailor tops the leaderboard.

The men’s Laser looks like it is turning into a two-horse race with two sailors tied at the top on 10 points, although on tiebreak it’s Australia’s Matt Wearn who holds the advantage over the Netherlands’ Rutger van Schaardendburg. Dutch master, PJ Postma, maintains his stranglehold on the Finn singlehanded fleet.

In the RS-X windsurfer, two Polish women share the lead, Maja Dziarnowska and Zofia Noceti-Klepacka, while it’s the Netherlands that tops the men’s leaderboard, although not the Olympic Champion of London 2012. Dorian van Rijsselberghe has had some great scores, but a disqualification after a collision with a French sailor sees him down in 8th place. Instead it’s another Dutch talent, Kirin Badloe, who holds a narrow lead over Poland’s Pawel Tarnowski and Great Britain’s Tom Squires.

The leaders in the women’s 470, Great Britain’s Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre had a pretty bad day by their high standards, picking up a black flag disqualification in one race and coming 16th in the next, yet somehow they have retained their position at the top of the scoreboard. In the men’s 470, perennial performers in Medemblik, the Swedish crew of Johan Molund and Sebastian Ostling put the hammer down to score two bullets and now hold a commanding lead over the fleet. The two 470 fleets are first to go into their medal races at 6pm on Friday evening, while the rest of the medal races are scheduled for Saturday.

Friday’s breeze looks set to be slightly lighter which, after today’s exertions, might come as a bit of a relief to some sailors at the Delta Lloyd Regatta.

Seventy four nations are represented among the 10 Olympic and 3 Paralympic events competing on May 26-30.

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Report by event media. Photo by Sander van der Borch.