Hendriksen leads overall in San Remo….

Saturday in San Remo started offering the most perfect sailing day, sun, wind and an eager fleet. An 11.30am start on a “square” line and the 40+ boats were off and running evenly spread on starboard tack. Jorgen Schonherr, who started 40% down from the committee boat, was soon showing his superb helming skills as he “popped” out in front of the fleet. His crew Jan told me “he simply never hits any bad waves, if you shut your eyes and just listen, there is just silence whilst other boats bang into wave after wave”.  This skill enables the top helm’s like Jorgen to maintain more speed, thus point higher, whilst other less able sailors struggle to hold their “lanes”.

So at the top mark the Danish team rounded first and set their light blue spinnaker. After the long downwind leg there were a bunch of top boats fighting for the inside track at each of the two orange gate marks. Also a change of course was made to compensate for a slight right-hand shift that saw the wind go from 90 degree’s to 110. However, as the fleet made their way up the second beat, the leaders were not able to locate the new “Yellow” mark !! For whatever reason it was not there… So race abandoned. It was a pity as a R.I.B with someone holding up the “M” flag would have saved the day, but it was not to be.

We all then waited for nearly 90 minutes before the re-start. (I still have no idea why). The wind was shifting but it was also dying, so when we did eventually start we all knew it was going to be a tricky race. Gerard Blanc from Cannes, made the best of the light winds to win the race and Lars Hendriksen’s 2nd place gave him the overall lead. With two more races planned for today the championship will be won by one of the three Transbunker boats, who are still 1st, 2nd and 3rd overall…..

Higher, Faster, Longer………….    Stavros. (NED 410).