49er and 49er FX Youth World Championships –1st day

Day 1 – After four races in 49er & 49er FX Youth World Championships in Gdynia, Poland – Spanish and Finnish team are leading.

Today in Gdynia the 49er & 49er FX Youth World Championships races have started. 44 crews from 15 countries have entered the regatta – 32 crews in the 49er and 12 crews in the 49erFX. Competitors will compete for four days.  The qualifying round began today and will last until Saturday.  On Sunday there will be the final races.

Today the weather wasn’t good, cloudy with a little wind, but wind was enough to sail all scheduled races. “Today was very light wind, but constant enough with some shifts.  The race committee  has done a good job – they ran races in wind conditions very close to the low class limit, but everything was OK.” – Martin Billoch, a Chilean team’s coach, said.  At 1pm the flag AP was removed and in 45 minutes the first race of the day began.  There were four races in each class.

In the first 49er race there was general recall and after that some teams scored BFD.  In the 49erFX in the first and second races some teams had false starts, including two Polish crews.

After four races in the 49er, Spanish crew Diego Botin and Pablo Tunado, won two races and are leading. “Today was very good conditions, that wind isn’t very difficult.  It’s youth championship and we think it’s a very good event for all of us, for people who are just starting in the 49er class.” Diego said.  The second placed team is French team Kevin Fischer and Marc Mallaret and in third are Brittons Tim Gratton and Chris Taylor.  The top of the leaderboard is very tight, between second and seventh place is just a three-point difference.  The best Polish crew Przemysław Filipowicz and Jacek Piasecki are in the sixth position. “Jacek is the most experienced in our team. He is good technically and speed-prepared.” – Krzysztof Kierkowski,  49er and 49erFX junior’ team coach, 49er Olympian in the Olympics in Athens and Beijing, explained. “We are prepared for as much as we could to prepare. Crews have been working hard during last winter, training here in Poland and sailing in Spain. Wind conditions don’t matter for us, we are prepared for all of them.”

Among women, Finnish crew Norra Ruskola and Camilla Cedercreutz are leading, ahead of Griselda Khng and Sarah Tan from Singapore.  The Polish crew Susanna Rybicka and Marcelina Sliwinska  are in third position.  Maria Cantero Izquierdo, who sailed very good three races and failed the last one, now on the fifth place, commented, “Today our sailing was pretty bad, cause we didn’t really trained so much with light wind.  We didn’t  start very well.  It was also difficult because it was shifty. We expected to be better.”

Tomorrow is the second day of the qualifying round. It is going to be light wind again. Four races are scheduled.

Visit our website: http://www.gdyniasailingdays.org/en/

and facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gdynia-Sailing-Days/491790440256?ref=hl

Results 49er

Scores take into account 1  discard

Results 49erFX

Scores take into account 1  discard