British crews advance at Nacra 17 World Championship
Written by RYA | 25 July 2013
Saxton and Diamond make the most of light wind conditions to move into second at The Hague
Ben Saxton and Hannah Diamond made the best of a light-wind interrupted fourth day at the inaugural Nacra 17 World Championship to move into second place with two days of the regatta left to run.
The duo, Rio 2016 hopefuls in Olympic sailing’s new mixed multihull class, moved into the silver medal position after the sole race of the day on Thursday (25 July), with light winds continuing to dominate at the Dutch venue of The Hague.
Light wind conditions coupled with a strong tide off Scheveningen led to a disrupted first two days of the regatta, but on Wednesday a 15-17 knot breeze allowed organisers to catch up and secure five races ahead of today’s split of the crews, with the top 25 boats in the standings going into the gold fleet and a chance for the podium spots come Saturday.
But today saw a return to the calm conditions – the lack of wind, heat and humidity making for a better beach day than sailing day – with crews postponed on shore until mid-afternoon before a first and unsuccessful attempt at a first race.
The postponement flag was lowered for a second time at 1612, and this time racing got underway just over an hour later with Southampton-based Saxton and Warsash’s Diamond quick out of the blocks. They finished second to France’s Billy Besson-Marie Riou, who top the leaderboard to the British Sailing Team pairing’s overall second after this fourth day, and with six races now on the board.
“We sailed well today, we got on the startline early and held our space,” the 23-year-old Saxton explained.
“We had an OK start, managed to hold our lane for 30 seconds to a minute, tacked out went right and got some good pressure. We were really quick after that, both upwind and downwind so that was good news.”
“We’ve come in here really just aiming to sail well, and then knowing that that will get us a good result because of [the training] we’ve got underneath us,” said Saxton of their approach to this first World Championship in the class.
“We knew that if we sailed well we could be right up at the top so we’ll be annoyed if we make mistakes and give people free points, but if we keep on sailing well then we know we can do well. I don’t want to put numbers on it!”
“They seem pretty keen to get racing so I’m sure we can be ready for more of a light wind, high scoring series.”
Poole’s Lucy Macgregor and Falmouth’s Tom Phipps also advanced in the overall standings after Thursday’s sole race in which they were fifth, and are teetering on the top ten medal race spots in 11th overall.
“It’s been a pretty disappointing event in terms of the breeze,” Macgregor admitted.
“We had a pretty full-on five race day in some yesterday, but we’re pretty desperate to get some racing in now so that the event doesn’t end up being a one or two day event. The forecast is light for the next two days so it’s not looking great, but hopefully we’ll get something in.”
All four British Sailing Team crews made the top-25 cut for the gold fleet, with Pippa Wilson and John Gimson currently 16th and Podium Potential duo Rupert White and Nikki Boniface in 20th overall.
Racing is set to continue from 1030hrs (local) on Friday with two more races scheduled for the gold fleet to determine Saturday’s ten medal race contenders.
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