Issue date
Haifa, Israel put on a tough challenge for the world’s best 470 sailors in town for the 2015 Olympic 470 World Championships, with light tricky winds resulting in postponements and a remorseless race course.
Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie handled today’s opening race demonstrating their racing pedigree and came away with a 4th place but suffered a black flag disqualification in the second race of the day which sees their points tally climb to 38, and their overall position drop to 5th.
“A hard day out there today for us,” says Polly Powrie. “We had a truly terrible start to the first race and were in the 30s at the top mark, but staged a rather epic comeback to get back to 4th.”
“But then we followed that up with an unfortunate black flag penalty for being over the line early in the next race. Not ideal at all.”
With three days of racing remaining the irrepressible Team Jolly will hit the water again tomorrow with the goal of improving.
“We’re about half way through [the regatta] now and still not at all hitting our potential, so we will try again tomorrow, make a few tweaks, and see what we can come away with.”
“It's all good learning. We are often quite surprised when after doing this whole sailing business for so long, we can still get so much out of a day on the water. I guess that's a big part of why we do it, still learning, still having fun (most of the time anyway!) and still trying to push ourselves further.”
It seemed as though the day would belong to Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark (GBR) who won race 5 and claimed the series lead. But it didn’t take long for reigning World Champions, Lara Vadlau and Jola Ogar (AUT), with their single digit scorecard, to pop out on top by race 6, with just one point separating the two teams.
Racing in the men’s fleet featuring 59 boats split into two for racing, Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox struggled today in the light conditions admitting that it was tough going;
“A hard day at the office,” says Snow-Hansen.
“Despite some good opportunities we didn't capitalize. We ended up with a 16th and 22nd…. Disappointing, but there is plenty to race for in the next couple of days.”
They slip from 12th overall to 14th with two days remaining to earn a place in the top ten ahead of Sunday’s medal race.
2015 470 World Championships
NZL Sailing Team’s current standings
5th Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie (2, 17, 10, 5, 4, BFD)
14th Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox (9, 4, 10, 1, 11, 16, 22)
Links:
Regatta website
NZL Sailing Team sailor profiles
NZL Sailing Team on Facebook
What else is on this year?
New Zealand’s Olympic 470 sailors aren’t the only ones yet to contest their 2015 World Championship titles with the 49er, 49erFX,RS:X, Finn and Laser Radial classes also scheduled to sail their respective World Champs within the next two months.
2015 49er and 49erFX World Championships
Dates: 16-21 November 2015
Venue: Buenos Aries, Argentina
Featuring: Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech and a handful of up and coming kiwi 49er crews including Logan Dunning-Beck and Jack Simpson, Markus Somerville and Aaron Hume-Merry, Isaac McHardie and Trent Rippey
2015 RS:X World Championships
Dates: 19-24 October 2015
Venue: Al Mussanah, Oman
Featuring: Natalia Kosinska and Jon Paul Tobin
2015 Finn Gold Cup
Dates: 24-29 November 2015
Venue: Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand
Featuring: Andrew Murdoch, Josh Junior and plenty more local and international sailors
Laser Radial World Championships
Dates: 20-26 November 2015
Venue: Al Mussanah, Oman
Featuring: Sara Winther, Susannah Pyatt
For more information contact:
Jodie Bakewell-White, Communications Manager
Tel. 021 709 065
Email. jodie@yachtingnz.org.nz
