While the British 49er and Nacra competitors ruled the leaderboards at Geeling, over at the Sandringham YC it was a more hit-and-miss first day for the GBR men at the Laser Worlds.
Elliot Hanson (2,8) finished best placed Brit in eighth, with Mikel Beckett 24th and Lorenzo Chiavarnini 26th.
While former world champion and Rio Olympian Nick Thimpson (15,14) finished down in 44th, after a trademark stuttering start that may be difficult to recover from.
Beckett won his opening race, Hanson took a second in his first race and Chiavarnini an eighth, but from there it was all down hill despite the improving weather conditions.
Elliot Hanson, “I’m really enjoying my sailing here and feel the most competitive across the wind range I’ve ever been. Unfortunately I got a little over excited in the second race and received a yellow flag which put a downer on an otherwise brilliant day.”
Australia’s Finn Alexander, ranked just 36th in the world, finished the day with a first and second place, to be tied for the lead with Rio Olympic silver medalist Tonci Stipanovic of Croatia (1,2).
In third place is Philipp Buhl (4,1) of Germany and fifth Pavlos Kontides (3,4) of Cyprus. Tadeusz Kubiak of Poland rounds out the top six.
Defending champion Tom Burton of Australia also had an average day by his standards, with a 7 and 13 which leaves him in a three-way for 29th overall. Robert Scheidt of Brazil also struggled and finished the day down in 40th place.
All three fleets were held onshore to wait for an almost non-existent westerly to back to the south-east and freshen.
This it duly did, and the first race got underway in 8-10 knots, by the time the second race started at around 5pm, the wind had freshened to 15 knots.
Wednesday’s forecast is for stronger winds which could increase to just under 25 knots by Thursday.
Laser men – World Championship after 2 flight races (124 entries)
1st AUS Finn ALEXANDER 2 1 – – 3 pts
2nd CRO Tonci STIPANOVIC 1 2 – – 3 pts
3rd GER Philipp BUHL 4 1 – – 5 pts
4th CYP Pavlos KONTIDES 3 4 – – 7 pts
5th FRA Jean Baptiste BERNAZ 1 7 – – 8 pts
6th POL Tadeusz KUBIAK 8 1 – – 9 pts
7th AUS Luke ELLIOTT 3 6 – – 9 pts
8th GBR Elliot HANSON 2 8 – – 10 pts
9th HUN Benjamin VADNAI 7 3 – – 10 pts
10th AUS Matt WEARN 6 4 – – 10 pts
11th NZL Sam MEECH 5 5 – – 10 pts
12th NED Duko BOS 9 2 – – 11 pts
13th NZL Thomas SAUNDERS 3 9 – – 12 pts
14th FRA Maxime MAZARD 4 8 – – 12 pts
15th ITA Nicolo VILLA 5 7 – – 12 pts
16th NED Rutger VAN SCHAARDENBURG 11 2 – – 13 pts
17th SWE Jesper STALHEIM 8 5 – – 13 pts
18th ITA Giovanni COCCOLUTO 5 10 – – 15 pts
19th FIN Kaarle TAPPER 13 3 – – 16 pts
20th USA Charlie BUCKINGHAM 12 4 16 pts
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