Nick Dempsey up to second

Three races completed on a big day at the RS:X Worlds

The Gold Fleets completed three races today. The Silver did not race. Wind speeds were solidly in the mid-20s and topping out at over 30. This world championship is turning into a war of attrition. Attrition on the sailors. And attrition on the equipment.

Yesterday Toni Wilhelm went to flight school yesterday with the result that his sail cartwheeled across the bay and smacked another racer on the back. Alex Jones [BER] was taken off the water and to hospital with broken bones in a foot. Today sailors who would not normally be taking rides over the handle bars were doing so.

They were certainly tired when they came ashore tonight and keen to rest because tomorrow it will be windy. That is certain. How windy remains to be seen. The forecast is for it to pick up.

Julien Bontemps [FRA] posted a 3-1-1 to take over as overall leader. Nick Dempsey [GBR] scored 1-2-3 to bounce back up to silver medal position. JP Tobin [NZL] 2-4-2 is up from 5th to 3rd.

Byron Kokalanis [GRE] dropped his sail on Dorian van Rijsselberghe [NED] and Przemyslaw Miarczynski [POL] at the start of race 9 and wound up swimming. He stormed back to finish 3rd. In the very next race, Dorian was back in the wars. This time powering off the line on starboard in close company with JP Tobin [NZL] and the rest of the fleet going to the left hand side. Only to find that Pauline Perrin [FRA] racing in the women’s fleet, at full speed on port having rounded mark 3 was threading her way through the men… Misjudged the distance on Dorian who clipped. Dorian was back in the water and losing time. The jury settled that by giving him average points for races 5 to 9

Over in the women’s fleet, Alessandra Sensini was on fire. She blew past everyone on the day posting a 1-1-1 to lock in her bronze medal position by establishing a 21 point lead over Bryony Shaw [GBR] in fourth

Lee Korzits [ISR] seemed to take her foot off the fast forward pedal today posting her worst result of the championship in race 8 finishing 6th. Luckily Zofia Klepacka [POL] mirrored the result in race 9 so the two are still 4 points apart.

Yesterday, we looked at the nations battling to qualify. Today, we are going to shine the light on the under 21 racers who are also racing for supremacy in their age division. Helene Noesmoen [FRA] – 122 points - is fighting it out with Izzy Hamilton [GBR] – 129 points – and Agnieszka Bilska [POL] – 140 points – in the women’s fleet.

Over in the men’s fleet, Louis Giard [FRA] – 165 points – is just one point in front of his friend Thomas Goyard [FRA] – 166 points – These two have a clear lead over the 2011 RS:X Youth World Windsurfing Champion Pawel Tarnowski [POL]

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