Leader Board Shake Up At The Fireball Worlds

Overnight leaders Christian Birrell and Sam Brearey (GBR) dropped down to sixth after a DSQ in the first race of the day. Their British rivals Nathan Bachelor and Sam Pascoe moved into the top spot after a consistent day of two third positions, followed closely by a chasing pack of five Australian pairings.

Conditions in Thailand were sunny with 10 knots of breeze with up to 20 degree wind shifts on some parts of the course. It was wind wide tide meaning the windward legs were hard on all the sailors, as everyone worked hard to keep their boat moving forwards through the water through the water.

Race 1 saw Birrell and Brearey first around the windward mark, taking off on the first reach to extend their lead. Following closesly behind in second were Batchelor and Pascoe then Heather MacFarlane and Chris Payne (AUS) in third.

The positions held through much of the race, until Birrell and Brearey decided that they wanted to practice their match racing tactics with Batchelor and Pascoe. A couple of dozen tacks ensued, letting MacFarlane and Payne slip through and get ahead of both of them. In their hurry to catch up, Birrell and Brearey decided to get physical and ended up getting whistled for kinetics, their penalty turns on the starboard layline were some cause for concern eventually leading to a DSQ in the protest room.

MacFarlane and Payne had no trouble for the rest of the race and took first very comfortably. The battle for second and third between Batchelor and Pascoe and Greg Allinson and Allen Blenkle (AUS) was where the real fight was, Allinson and Blenkle managed to catch them on the final hitch to the line for a second place finish.

First around the windward mark in Race 2 was Schulz and Sheppard followed closely by Birrell and Brearey, both teams taking advantage of the increase in wind speed and smaller waves on the left hand side of the course. The rest of the fleet rounded the windward mark within a couple of boat lengths of each other, the fleet split going down the first run with Thomas Gordon and Jack Fletcher (AUS) making a substantial gain.

The second beat saw some of the early front runners fall back and let the usual suspects make their way to the front. The two reaches caused some problems for the top sailors, Schulz and Sheppard broke a kite sheet and dropped to third while Allison and Blenkle had to drop their spinnaker to make the gybe mark.

The last couple of legs saw a number of position changes. Schulz and Sheppard recovered from their breakage to sneak up to second again, Birrell and Brearey held onto to their lead with Schulz and Sheppard in second and Batchelor and Pascoe kept MacFarlane and Payne at bay on the final run to take third.

Results