Worlds @Takapuna: Day 4, Report by Bob Griffits

Report by Bob Griffits
Day 4: A Class Catamaran World Championships.
"Glenn Ashby continues to dominate the A Class Catamaran World Championship, here in Takapuna, New Zealand. After 8 races, he remains firmly in control, and looks destined for his eighth A Class World Championship, a truly amazing feat, particularly considering he has left three fellow Olympic Silver Medallist’s lining up immediately behind him, and a gold medallist I little further back.

Ashby needs only a reasonable placing in tomorrow’s final race to secure the Championship. Gear failure which resulted in a DNF earlier in the regatta is the only thing that has stopped him wrapping up the Championship by this juncture. He truly deserves this Title.
In second place overall is Blair Tuke, whom is reasonably securely sitting in second place, 15 points behind Ashby, and seven points ahead of the third placed boat.
Andrew Landenberger has continued in fine form, and still retains third place overall ahead of Peter Burling, who sits just 2 points behind.

Today’s racing started in a light South Westerly wind, which fluctuated considerably in intensity and direction. The breeze built up to about 10 knots for most of the second race.
An unusual hazard out there today were flocks of thousands of Mutton Birds, and unfortunately number of the little critters succumbed to the inevitable collisions which they incurred with rudders, and centreboards.
The first race was won by Ashby, ahead of Andrew Landenberger. The leadership fluctuated as the result of the constantly fluctuating wind direction and strength.

In the last race, Ashby had to settle for a third place, with Blair Tuke winning the race ahead Nathan Outteridge. Nathan Outteridge has suffered a run of gear failure this regatta, with recurrent outhaul failures, a broken rudder push rod yesterday, and rudder damage from collision with a Mutton Bird today. Nathan does not see that bad luck had any part to play in it, and put in down to lack of pre-race training which would have allowed the boat’s weaknesses to become manifest before the racing had begun.
The racing concludes tomorrow, with racing scheduled for an 11 AM start, with winds scheduled to once again be light, starting from the south, then veering to the south east. Hopefully the Mutton Bird flocks have moved on overnight in the interests of their own safety."

Bob Griffits. (PS. I was not responsible for the known death of any Mutton Birds, but I worked very hard to avoid them).

Full Results at http://www.sailingeventstakapuna.com/media/files/Sailwave%20results%20f…