RS: World Championships: Snakes and ladders on the centre course

Overnight 36mm of rain had deluged Perth in just 30 minutes but the low pressure was still hanging around this morning. Riders woke to total cloud cover and the same wind direction that had delivered solid gold racing on day 1.

The men racing in the RS:X World Windsurfing Championships were scheduled to race on the centre course starting at 12:30hrs. The Blue fleet went out first with the start boat close up against the northern breakwater.

Dorian van Rijsselberghe [NED] strode into the lead which had extended to 2 minutes on his second visit to the top mark. The race win was in the bag. He just had to complete the course to post his first bullet of the day. Unfortunately he had not paid enough attention to the course signals on the stern of the start boat... He presented himself at the finish line one lap early and then had to play a desperate game of catch up finally finishing 16th.

He made up for it in the second by firing in a bullet but the beneficiary of his mistake in the first was Zac Plavsic who made history and climbed a personal Everest too by pouncing on Dorian's mistake and taking the gun. A Canadian athlete has never before won a race at an Olympic class windsurfing world championships.

Asked what he thought of the centre course today Zac said "It's like playing snakes and ladders. In that board game finding a ladder can move you right up. The reverse is true of the snakes. I just managed to find more ladders than snakes today."

Another racer who has had the best 2 days racing in his life is Eliot Carney. He popped in a 3 and a 6 today and now is 6th overall.
On coming ashore he said: "I'm tired but really happy... Just trying to keep a lid on my emotions... These have been the best 2 days racing I have ever had."

He's come good just as Nick Dempsey has gone off the boil. He is loathing the conditions in Perth. The weed in the water being a big bug to bear.

Equal second are the Polish pair, Piotr Myszka and Przemislaw Miarczynski.

Nimrod sits on top of the leaderboard with a mere six points whilst Shahar is buried in 19th place with forty three. He is spoiled for choice when it comes to deciding which race to discard but he favours the 16th place that he scored in race 2 at the moment.

Tom Ashley [NZL] is putting a nice series together. Placing 2nd and 3rd today, he's back to his imperious self in 4th place overall while JP is paying the price for the wound in his left foot. The one inflicted by that mean little fish, the Cobbler. He just could not apply the necessary pressure on it to do better than a 6th and a 10th today.

We're moving to the business end of the qualification round tomorrow with the points close enough to put 7 sailors in with a chance of making the cut. As for the number of countries going to qualify, on our current calculations the silver fleet will be fighting over the 3 remaining places not already taken by those in the gold fleet.

RS:X Men's Top 10

1. ISR21 Nimrod Mashiah 6.0
2. Przemyslaw Miarczinski 10.0
3. POL82 Piotr Myszka 10.0
4. NZL181 Tom Ashley 14.0
5. GER3 Toni Wilhelm 17.0
6. GBR7 Elliot Carney 20.0
7. NED8 Dorian van Rijsselberghe 21.0
8. FRA6 Julien Bontemps 22.0
9. ESP7 Ivan Pastor 23.0
10. CAN33 Zac Plavsic 25.0

Full Results

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Photo credit: Vincenzo Baglione