2009 420 World Championship, Riva del Garda - Maryanne Turner
Bongiorno from sunny Riva del Garda.
We have just completed Day 2 of the final medal race series.
Most of the NZ team arrived in Riva 14 days ago. Six of the sailors flying in with Grant Beck from Brazil having completed the ISAF Youth World Championships. Most of the team chartered 420Õs from Blu Blu and the transition from collecting the boats to setting them up with individual parts bought over from NZ went off without a hitch.
The sailors had 7 days training acclimatizing to local conditions prior to commencing racing on the 28th July.
The 29er Worlds were taking place when we arrived with Blair Tuke (NZ) and Steven Thomas (Aus) convincingly winning the overall championship. Blair came to see us all one evening and briefed our sailors on the typical conditions on the lake and the pitfalls to watch out for when sailing the course. The wind is relatively predictable coming from the North usually in the morning, dying out and swinging to the South ÔThe OraÕ by 1pm – this is generally stronger but still shifty – typical lake sailing.
James Munro has posted fantastic photos of the region, sailing and general trip photos on
http://picasaweb.google.com/james.p.munro
Between James and Karen Goldwater the rest of the team can leave their cameras tucked away in our rooms.
The competition began on the 29th July with the official practice race. Two courses were run – one for the girls and one for the boys. The girls race ran smoothly with Alex and Bianca showing their dominance and skills over the rest of the fleet in the early stages.
The boys race was chaos with utter carnage on the start line which incidentally has continued throughout the championships. The initial qualifying round was a test in sailing shifty lake conditions, coming to grips with a start line where anything goes and the rule book is thrown out the window. The only thing the judges are interested in is Rule 42 with unbelievable frequency !
The NZ team bore the brunt of some challenging decisions form the judges but to their credit have completed the series with 4 out of 6 boats in the Gold Fleet and then remaining two in the Silver fleet both determined to prove their true abilities.
We had 3 races yesterday in the Final series but today with either too little wind or thunder and lightning storms resulting in no sailing although the race committee did send the girls fleet out for 5 hours waiting through the storms. All results can be seen on www.fragliavelariva.it
We thank you for your support and we look forward to the three remaining days of racing in one of the most beautiful sailing venues in the world.
Ciao
From Riva del Garda