Day 1 of the World Championships finally dawned in Sonderborg, Denmark. The 100+ competitors were divided into Yellow and Blue fleets following qualifying races.
The start line for the Blue fleet was slightly biased to starboard, with a clean first start in 10-12knts of breeze. Andrea Bonezzi made the most of the first leg, tacking over to starboard early, using the right hand side of the course and shift to the right and showing strong speed to get him first around the top mark. The group that went middle-left off the start didn't fair as well with the wind shifts, with the best placed of those that went left being Chris Peile in 7th position around the top mark.
On the 2 reaches places stayed as they were, although Shappy led a catch-up by the second group to close the gap to the leading bunch.
The right hand side paid strongly for the second beat, with many boats hitting the right hand corner hard enough to reach in to the top mark with it appearing beneficial to overstand. At the end of the leg Andrea led Christoph Homeier, with Gary Langdowne and Jens Langendorf close behind. The breeze had increased up to 12-15knts during the beat, with the race officials responding by raising the pumping flag at the top mark.
Christoph took advantage of the pumping flag down the run to out-pump Andrea and grab the lead by the bottom mark.
Up the final beat, again the majority of boats stayed to the right hand side of the course, with Christoph loosely covering Andrea out to the starboard layline. With the cover in place both Gary and Jens closed the gap to Andrea on the final leg, but could not pass.
The top five across the finish line were Christoph, Andrea, Gary, Jens and Chris Peile.
Race 3 Yellow Fleet
The yellow fleet got away first time in a building breeze of approx12-14 knots, shortly after the start a large left shift favoured the boats on the left side of the beat. Bonnezi got it correct and led round the mark from Scott and Holden. These positions remained down the reaches. The race committee changed the position of the windward mark which caused confusion amongst some of the fleet including Holden. At the time of writing there are approx 30 protests from the race committee pending aginst boats that sailed the wrong course. At the top of the beat although going quicker Bonnezi misjudged the layline and allowed Scott to close followed by Neate, Langdorf and an improving Langdown. Scott passed Bonezi on the run and held on to take victory with Bonnezi second followed by Langdorf, Neate and Langdown.
