Warnemunde-Day 4

Day 4.

Going into the last day of Warnemunde, I was in second on 13 points, and Jean Baptiste was leading on 7 points. Given that he was only counting top 2's, I didnt think there was any chance of catching him for the overall title. It was pretty breezy, and I thought the best I could do was to close the gap.

In the first race of the day, I started a bit down from the boat end, and punched out on the boats around. The breeze did a small flick right, and I held out waiting for the breeze to come back. I sailed into a bit of pressure on the left, and then tack back towards the main bunch. Several boats on the right had sheared off me while I had headed out left, and I was crossing the course in about 10th. I snuck by a few guys, but lost a bit of distance on lead group to round in 6th. I had a quick top reach to round the bear away mark in 3rd. I snuck by one more on the run, and had taken a pretty big chunk out of the leader.

After rounding the bottom gate, I flipped onto a starboard tack lift, and sailed for quite some time with the leader just ahead and on my hip. Eventually it knocked, and I came back at him. I took his transom and then sailed for about 10 boatlengths, and tacked back. We had quite a large lead at this stage, and I wanted to stay close. He soon tacked back, and took my transom. I flipped again on his hip. I misplayed the shifts, and we knocked heavily. Matt Coutts, who was quite a bit back, had played the right, and it worked beautifully, as he crossed both of us on a big righty. I rounded the top in 3rd, and managed to sneak by James Burman on the run to hold onto second. After I finished, I noticed that Jean Baptiste was back in 6th, which had opened up an opportunity for me, as his lead had taken quite a hit, and was down to two points.

Race 2.
My plan of attack was to start near Jean, and put a bit of pressure on if I have the chance. We both started about 1/3 up from the pin, with about 2 boats in between. I am not a big fan of going slow to attack, but went into a slightly higher mode, and pinched the two guys off above. I was then in Baptiste's line, so I put my bow down to try and extend. I put almost 5 boatlengths on him over the next couple of minutes, and looked to be in a strong position for the race win. The guys to weather were quite far behind, and the most threatening guy(to leeward), were in my window.

Eventually, Baptiste tacked away. I thought the breeze was going to go a bit further left, so I hung on a couple more boatlengths before tacking. Baptiste was in my window at this stage, and the breeze continued to shift left. I rounded the top mark in about 5th, but thought I could get by the guys in front with a bit more offwind speed. I rounded the bottom in 1st, and saw Baptiste was quite far behind. I did my best to herd the fleet up the next work to make it difficult for Baptiste to make a gain. In the end, I won the race, and also locked up the event.

I am now in Belgium in lead up to the Laser European Championship. This will be the last event for me before racing in China.