F18 Worlds 2014 @Ireland: Day 1 , Larsen – van West lead
All Images by Jasper van Staveren www.jaspervanstaveren.com. Full gallery at CSN FB. Fleet racing right now. Follow live data in our Twitter window to the right. The source is F18 Worlds Official Twitter account: https://twitter.com/F18worlds2014
And I’m also in contact with Jasper van Staveren who is taking pics and reporting key moments I will be updating on twitter.
Official website https://2014.f18worlds.com/
Official Live blog https://2014.f18worlds.com/liveblog/
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On the weekend Gunnar sent me a nice F20c video to publish, today I replied thanking for the material and also pointed him out that along Ashby he has also a pending task on the F18: his World Title, as he has been top 5 many times already.
Today, to confirm their mission Larsen & Ashby scored 1 & 2 in the only race of the day. A race shorter for one of them for grabbing finally their F18 WC… if the rest of the contenders allow of course.
Day Report from the water:
First race was scheduled for 11:30AM, we went out 10:30 and we were left floating with many wind direction/intensity changes.
Only 3hs and half hours later a first start could be attempted. Offshore winds between 4 & 8knots that later stabilized in the lower range.
Windward-Leeward course, 4 legs, lots of wind shifts and puffs. Larsen and Ashby were fighting for the lead since the start but Gunnar was always in front. Bontemps was way back and got several ups & downs to finish 16th recovering at least 10 positions in the last downwind run.
The Arg team bet too high for the first race going for a privileged spot near the RC bu had an awful start with a collision with the RC boat (And got a prize for that action , see pics above). Started dead last but they managed to recover to a decent 15th, considering.
That was the only race of the day.
Yesterday they were leading the practice race on the Cirrus R provided by Anne & Manu Boulogne.
Of all the new F18s we are missing an R here in BA, and I think is time to bring one.
Only one race held today. Top ten below. Pics and more info later.
Full Results at https://2014.f18worlds.com/
| Rank | Bow | HelmName | CrewName | SailNo | Cat | R1 |
| 1st | 17 | Gunnar Larsen | Ferdinand van West | NED 17 | 1 | |
| 2nd | 39 | Glenn Ashby | Brett Goodall | AUS 359 | 2 | |
| 3rd | 38 | Helge Sach | Christian Sach | GER 310 | Master | 3 |
| 4th | 34 | Grant Piggott | Simon Farren | GBR 1588 | 4 | |
| 5th | 42 | Lois Berrehar | Hugo le Pomellec | FRA 88 | Junior | 5 |
| 6th | 28 | Tim Mourniac | Jean Christophe Mourniac | FRA 2222 | 6 | |
| 7th | 14 | Taylor Reiss | Matthew Whitehead | USA357 | Junior | 7 |
| 8th | 23 | Simon Northrop | Josh O’Brien | GBR 1581 | 8 | |
| 9th | 16 | William Sunnucks | Freddie White | GBR 501 | Master | 9 |
| 10th | 11 | Jolann Neiras | Antoine Rucard | FRA 8 | Junior | 10 |
This is a Match race between 2 teams (where one of the teams by the way, Nacra, managed to decimate the race from 180 to 50 boats when they put N17 Europeans at the same dates. Who wins 2014 is not so interesting but can they do it again 2015 ?