Third day…
This morning skippers’ meeting was at 10am and our special friend showed up, THE WIND. We rigged the formula gear and started the first race at 11am. The wind was around 12 to 18 knots on the gusts and some sailors went on 12.0 while others took 11.
On the first race, everyone started on starboard tack, the big difference was where to tack, as there was a shift in the middle of the course that could go in your favor, or not.
Gonzalo Costa, took the bullet followed by the strong polish fleet, Michael Polanowski in second, Pawel Hlavaty in third and Hubert Mokrzycki in fourth, the fifth place went to Wilhelm Schurmann.
On the second race of the day, about 5 sailors started port tack as pin end was the favor way to go. The race was well disputed until the end, on the first downwind, Hubert and Polanowski crashed and had to abandon the race, Hubert sailed the rest of the day with a lot of pain on his leg and was limping a lot. Gonzalo won again followed closely by Steve Allen in second, Jesper Vesterstrom in Third, Schurmann in Fourth and Miguel Martinho in fifth.
On the third and last formula race of the day, almost everyone started port, Fabio Melo, Schurmann, Jesper and another two sailors who I don’t recall who, started on starboard. Jesper lead the race until the last upwind, where Gonzalo overtook him after going a bit further on starboard and won the race to dominate the formula races up to now with 4 bullets. Jesper finished second, which still was a great effort, considering he was felling really sick during all the races and had to go to Hospital afterwards. Schurmann came in third, Polanowski in fourth and Wojtek in fifth, who had a bit of bad luck and was hit with wind shift right at the buoy having to double tack on both upwind.
After the formula races, we started getting ready for slalom. A downwind course was set with 4 jibes and a finish by the beach, which made it really exciting for the sailors and spectators as well. There were 2 semifinals where the top 5 advance to the final and the remainder to the losers final.
At around 2pm, we started the first heats with winds around 16 to 23 knots.
On the first final, we had to be called back 3 times as sailors kept on going over, Gonzalo, Miguel, Menegati all missed the first final for being over early. After finally having a clean start, Steve Allen rounded in first and controlled it until the end to take the win, Schurmann came close in second followed by Polanowski in third.
On the second final, Steve again had a great start at the pin end and took the win, Gonzalo manage to sneak in with Schurmann on the first jibe and clear the pack to finish second and third.
On the last final of the day, Gonzalo took off on the start and won the race followed by Polanowski who was latter DSQ on a protest, so the second place went to Steve Allen and third to Wojtek.
It was a excellent windy day and SINES proved that is an excellent racing venue.
Everyone is pretty worn out and tired, but tomorrow there is more.
Until then…
Wilhelm Schurmann
BRA999
