British teams are at the top of the Women divisions after a wet and windy first day’s racing in Holland at the Delta Lloyd Junior 470 World Championships. Racing in the short, sharp chop of the Ijselmeer out of the International Sailing Centre Medemblik, Anna Burnet and Flora Stewart took a firm grasp of the Force 4 conditions to sail out to an enormous lead in their first heat of the 32-strong women’s fleet.
Burnet and Stewart’s big lead in their first race somewhat fell into their laps, after being forced to tack away soon after the start and ducking most of the fleet to break out into clear air on the right-hand side of the course. “We found a windshift out there,” said Stewart, “maybe 15 degrees or so, and suddenly we were in the lead.” By the first mark they were almost 2 minutes ahead of the next boat. Local sailors Nina Keijzer and Anneloes van Veen train in Medemblik more than anywhere, and their familiarity with the conditions started to show as they moved past some of the highly-fancied German crews to come second behind the British.
The Dutch then picked up a 3rd in the next race with the British in 4th, and now these two crews share the top of the leaderboard with 5 points, although the first race victory nominally puts Burnet and Stewart in first place. The reigning women’s 470 Junior World Champions, Victoria Jurczok and Josephine Bach, struggled in the strong conditions today, a stark contrast to the lighter breezes that suited the German crew in Qatar last year. “We are not so fast in the strong wind,” said Jurczok, “but for us we were quite pleased with our day. We have had some bad regattas in the past few months. We broke our mast here in Medemblik at the Delta Lloyd Regatta back in May, and then broke another mast at Skandia Sail for Gold. This week we want to get out of this bad phase and start sailing well again.”
Another highly rated German team, Tina Lutz and Susann Beucke, had an up and down day. They won the 470 Junior European Championships on these same waters four years ago, but a momentary lapse of concentration before the start saw them capsize. Still, they made a good start to the first race, although a bit too good as they discovered when they crossed the finish line in 6th place only to find out they had been scored OCS for being over the start early. A disappointing start for one of the series favourites, but they bounced back strongly by winning the second race. Lutz and Beucke will be looking to discard that OCS later in the series.
Racing continues until 28 July 2011.
