Yvegen Braslavets wins in La Rochelle with Alexander Mirchuck & Sergiy Timokhov
The final day in La Rochelle began with an short delay to allow the wind to settle after an overnight front had seen rain move up from Bordeaux. This more or less prevented any chance of two races, so when the fleet eventually left the marina we all knew it would be just one final race….
With an overnight lead of 10pts UAE 8 only had to keep a couple of boats in their sights to guarantee victory…. indeed that is exactly what they did.
The race started with a westerly breeze of around 10kts, boats that chose the right side of the course made out better than the left. However, go too far right and it was possible to over-stand the first mark and that is exactly what a large group of competitors did !! The three boats that sailed the first beat perfectly were UAE 7 Markus Wieser, RUS 27 Anatoly Loginov and GER 1123 Michael Zankel. Although there were a few place changes throughout the race, this was the finishing order of the top three boats…
Silver Medals for Dmitry Samokhin, Andrey Kirilyuk and Aleksey Bushuev in RUS76.
Meanwhile UAE 8 made their way up through the fleet to finish 10th, RUS 76 had a fine race to make it to 8th place and take the Silver Medal spot, but GER 11 dropped back to 22nd and thus out of the top three overall. However, Markus Wieser’s excellent final race win, rewarded his team with the final podium position and the Bronze Medal at this fantastic Championship…
Bronze Medal Winners, Markus Wieser, Sergey Pugachev and Georgii Leonchuk. UAE 7.
Winners of the Corinthian Fleet & the Master’s Trophy (new), was the fantastic team from Australia sailing AUS 225 “Dragonfly”, helmed by William Packer and crewed by Julian Harding and Denis Cullity. These guy’s had an amazing regatta, finishing 7th overall and extremely happy.. Many congratulations my friends for this unique and brilliant “Double”. :-).
The “Dragonfly” team from AUS 225, William Packer, Julian Harding & Denis Cullity.
This was a most wonderful World Championships and the SRR led by Claire Fountaine did an excellent job, supported by our fantastic International Race Officer, Philippe Faure. The courses were well laid with fair and skilfully set starting lines, whilst the On-the-Water management was second to none.
Many congratulations to all concerned. La Rochelle is a stunning place to sail and visit, it has everything going for it… First Class Yachting of the highest order…..
Higher, Faster, Longer……………. Stavros.