F16 Europeans: Day 3

Report by 2BSailing – Photos Marco Iazetta – Race Update – F16 Euro Challenge – Day 3 –
Date: 21 July 2010 Location: AVAL-CDV Centro Vela Alto Lario – Gravedona, Lake Como, Italy

Race 7.
The first race of the day got underway with 8-9 knots of breeze and the majority of the fleet headed to the left hand side to get to the eastern shore. Four boats that had bad starts were forced to the right hand side but came out famously leading the fleet. First to the top mark was a battle between Chris Sproat from the UK on his Viper with Gill De Bruyne close behind. 

The pair led to the first downwind but the rest of the fleet had pulled in lot of distance out of the pair. The second upwind saw Christa Van Helden and Froukje Feenstra step a little to the left of the leaders and gained new pressure to take the lead. The eventual winner was Carolijn Brouwer and Liz Wardley once again showing superior downwind speed catching Christa Van Helden and Brett Goodall gaining buoy room on the final mark to the finish.

Race 8.
Go left!! Lara and Silvia Sicouri came off the pin end of the start line closely followed by Froukje Feenstra and Darren Bundock and were able to get right over to the eastern shore of Lake Como with more wind pressure and tacked and crossed the fleet. The Sicouri sisters extended their lead throughout the race. The battle for second was hotly contested by the 2B Sailing teams swapping the lead through out the race, Feenstra/Bundock were faster upwind but were always overtaken by Brouwer/Wardley on the down wind. Brouwer/Wardley gained second place on the downwind to the finish with Feenstra/Bundock settling for 3rd.

Race 9.- Photo Left: The Sicouri ‘Rocket’ Girls
The breeze had built to 12 knots and there was a race to the eastern shore out of the start. Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin had a glamour start off the pin end and sent it to the left hand side. Thijs Visser/Diemer Feenstra started at the boat end and with superior speed eventually rolled everyone one by one forcing them to tack off to the right. This left the two boats Waterhouse and Visser charging out of the left to lead around the first mark. With the fleet committed to going left on the second upwind Froukje Feenstra and Darren Bundock under tacked the layline and the majority of the fleet overlayed. Feenstra made massive gains to move into 3rd position and over-powered Visser on the downwind. Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin had a comfortable lead and Froukje Feentsra and Darren Bundock holding onto second ahead of Thijs Visser/Diemer Feenstra.
The overall scores are now tight with 6 points seperating the top 5 boats.
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