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 Race start at 2010 Laser Radial World Championship
Craig Heydon, Tuesday, 13 July 2010 The first day of finals racing at the 2010 Laser Radial World Championship in Scotland has been a tough one for Australia’s two Gold fleet representatives Laura Baldwin and Krystal Weir. After a delayed start the fleet was able to complete one race with Baldwin crossing the line in 31st to remain 26th overall while Weir was 55th and is 52nd overall.
“Gold fleet finals kicked off with three recalls and a postponement which looked like it would be the end of racing for the day but as forecast some wind came from somewhere and stayed long enough for us to get on the downwind leg where it went still,” said Baldwin. “Looking for clues as to what would come next; there was a big black sinister cloud to the left of us looking downwind, clear blue skies to the right and a tornado on the headland just in front of us!”
“The beat then turned into a fetch, the downwind became a reach and as the winds shifted yet further, 160 degrees from where it started, the last reach became a beat with a broad reach to the finish,” she said. “The breeze was erratic and streaky making for lots of place changes.”
“I both lost and gained places in the chaos, people who were in front finished behind and vice versa but overall I lost out from 15 to 31 which was disappointing. I stay in 26th place over night and with three races tomorrow and two on Wednesday we have just under half the regatta still to race.”
Weir also had a difficult race and slipped from 43rd overall to 52nd but with five races remaining there’s still plenty of time to improve.
“I had a pretty tough day out there today,” said Weir. “We only had the one race today and I wasn’t able to get off the start line cleanly. Then during the race the wind shifted 90 degrees and dropped to nothing and then picked up to 15knots again, very cloud driven wind.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to take one step at a time, work on getting a clean start, get the first shift and stay in the pressure, keep it simple,” she said.
In the Silver fleet Ashley Stoddart is the leading Australian in 11th position, the Queenslander finished 19th in the opening finals race and is now just 10 points off the top five.
Megan de Lange is just behind Stoddart in 14th, after finishing Monday’s race in 12th position.
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