Daniel Henderson Clinches 2011 Musto Performance Skiff World Championship On The Final Day

Following a brief postponement ashore, the AP flag was lowered at 11:30 local time and the competitors launched into an 8 knot southerly breeze.

Race 10 was general recalled at 12:32 with the wind at 5-6 knots, and the restart went off clean at 13:16 with the breeze at 8 knots.

The majority of the fleet took the pin end of the line and headed left. This proved to be the formula for Jonathan Neate (AUS) who stormed into a one minute lead at the windward mark. Neate further extended his lead to take the win by two minutes from Australian team mate Jon Newman (AUS). The racing throughout the week has been very close and it was the same today as Newman had Dan Ward (GBR) and Tom Wright (GBR) in close company, but he held them both off to the finish for a well deserved second place finish.

Further back, championship leader Daniel Henderson and his closest rival Marcus Hamilton (AUS) were fighting their way back up the fleet having both had conservative starts. Hamilton finished ninth and Henderson sixth.

With the breeze picking up the 12 knots the final race of the championship started at the first attempt at 14:35.

Bruce Keen (GBR) copied Neate from Race 10 by pulling clear to lead all the way and again take the win by two minutes from Julian Ramm (GER). Hamilton pulled through to take third place which dropped him from an overnight second overall to third overall by tie break with race winner Keen.

Meanwhile 2011 Musto Performance Skiff World Champion Daniel Henderson finished in fourth place. Henderson started sailing in the Optimist class, but soon grew out of this class and moved into the highly competitive 29er class. He moved into the Musto Performance Skiff at age 17 along with Tom Wright who finished 11th and Matt Hollis who finished 12th.

Full results can be found here.