Day 4 ?? Pressure Begins To Show

In the last two races of the qualifier series the pressure at the top may just be starting to tell on the leaders of the Laser 4.7 World Championship.

Overnight leader Justin ONVLEE from South Africa could only manage a sixth place finish in his first race of the day whilst his main challenger, Dant STANSIC from Croatia scored a fourth. These two points were crucial to Stansic as it gave him the overall lead for the time in series.

Onvlee offered no excuses. He said. “I just did not get it together”. As both went out and won their next race Stansic keeps his one point lead going into the final three races where for the first time the top sailors will race against each other. Onvlee’s first in his last race was achieved in the last 500 metres to finish. Having the rounded the last mark in second, the 10 knots started to die at the leeward end of the course. Onvlee went looking for wind by tacking into the normally unfavoured middle of the lake and found a little more pressure to take the lead.

Behind him, the lower places in his fleet were not so lucky and the fleet parked for a short while until the southerly Ora wind re-established itself.

As a precaution the two remaining fleets still racing were shortened at the end of the second downwind leg in a light, 7 knot wind.

With a possible three more races in the gold fleet, and all but Stansic having already scored a drop race, the championship is still wide open. In Stansic’s favour he can still count his worst result as an eighth. For the chasing pack, including Onvlee, a bad result in one of the three remaining races will leave them hoping for 10 races when a second discard comes into effect.

Full results are available on the event website at the address below.

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