After long postponements for all threeremaining classes at the Open Europeans Helsinki 2011, a light breezefinally filled in late in the day to allow three races for the 49erand two races for each of the 470 fleets. Sailing on the mostoffshore course, the Finns were cancelled earlier and will nowhopefully start their championship on Sunday. Nico Delle Karth/Nikolaus Resch (AUT)retain the overall lead in the 49ers, and with the first of the 470races completed, Mathew Belcher/Malcolm Page (AUS) and RyunosukeHarada/Yugo Yoshida (JPN) share the lead the 470 Men after biothposting perfect scores, while Tina Mrak/Teja Cerne (SLO) lead the 470Women.
With temperatures passing 30 degrees onshore and hardly any wind all morning, most had resigned themselvesto a long wait. A light breeze from the south filled in and thesailors were finally released from the beach from around 16.00. Thewind gradually increased to around 8-10 knots with the racingcontinuing until early evening.49er In the 49er, both yellow and bluefleets were able to get off three races today in tight racing justoff the inner harbor. The sailors were finally sent out around 4:30in a slowly building breeze.After the fifth race, the overallleaders were Peter Kruger Andersen/Nicolai Thorsell (DEN) who had athree point lead over Nico Delle Karth/Nikolaus Resch (BEL) and wereleading the sixth and final race of the day when at the leeward gatetheir main halyard gave way. Kruger Andersen commented, "We camearound the gate in first, going into the second lap and our main felldown and we had to go in. There are different ways you can attachyour main and obviously the one we chose at the moment is maybe toorisky. It's not the main halyard itself that broke, it's the waywe tied the rope. From now on we'll use a normal shackle; we'veused rope in the past as we don't want the shackle to break thecarbon fiber. It's the first time it's happened to us."With six races completed the leadersgoing into the final day of qualifying are Nico Delle Karth/NikolausResch (AUT) followed by Nathan Outteridge/Iain Jensen (AUS) withKruger Andersen/Thorsell (DEN) falling to third overall. Qualifyingraces finish tomorrow followed by three more days of the final seriesculminating with the medal race to be held on Wednesday 13 July.FinnFor the Finn class, the PRO, Peter Reggio, took the decision to cancel racing for the day at 13.25 with no wind in place at that time. With the Finn course area the furthest offshore, around five miles from the venue, no racing could start within 90 minutes of releasing the fleet from shore. The longer the delay went on, the more unlikely racing was to happen.He said, "There is no wind out there. If we sent them out now they would be starting at 3 o'clock in no wind and if any wind did arrive it's not going to be sufficient to give them a good race for thefirst race of the series. We have plenty of time to catch up and I'd rather wait for better breeze to give them better racing than what might develop today. But even if it might I don't think they'd be happy to go out and race in this after waiting around for four or five hours. That's just wrong, so we blew it off and sent them home."The final confirmed Finn entry is 71 boats from 23 nations including 16 juniors competing for the Junior Finn Europeans.The Finns are racing in one fleet until Wednesday, with the medal race for the top 10 and the final race for the rest on Thursday 14 July.470 Women The 43 boat 470 Women fleet got racingin a steady 10-12 knot breeze, with a general recall in race onefollowed by a clear start. Race 1 was a close finish between Sloveniaand Spain, with world ranked #23 Tina Mrak/Teja Cerne just movingahead to take the gun by six seconds over Tara Pacheco/BertaBetanzos.Several boats were sent off the racecourse in race 2, suffering the consequence of a black flag penalty.Annika Bochmann/Anika Lorenz (GER) were pretty satisfied with their11th place in race 1 today, so were disappointed to be back on shoreearly from race 2. "We thought it was clear, I am reallydisappointed to come home," said Lorenz, before returning to theirrace 1 success. "We had a very good shift to to the left androunded the windward mark in third or fourth, but then during thefirst downwind and second upwind we lost a few places. But, it wasreally good and I am satisfied."The Spanish pair of Pacheco/Betanzosagain kept the pressure on in race 2 and were in the leading pack,with their main focus on catching the Brazilian boat helmed by 2008Olympic bronze medal winning helm Fernanda Oliveira, with crew AnaLuisa Barbachan, who had grabbed the lead early on, but it was not tobe and the win went to the Brazilians with a 30 second margin, theSpanish in second and Mrak/Cerne in third.Delighted with their race win, Oliveiracommented, "In the first 10 minutes I think we had the lead. Westarted on the right side and then tacked and we could sail withclear air with good wind, and then we tacked again and it was done.It was a big difference against the fleet."After two races, Tina Mrak/Teja Cerne(SLO) lead the fleet, with Pacheco/Betanzos (ESP) second and Oliveira/Barbachan (BRA) third.470 MenThe 74 boat 470 men have been splitinto two fleets, red and yellow, with an equal assignment of boats toeach fleet, seeded based on their World Rankings. Seventeen of themen's top 20 world ranked teams are competing here in Helsinki, so itis inevitable that racing will be close.Up to the race track first were the 470men yellow fleet, including the world #1 team of Mat Belcher/ MalcolmPage (AUS) in its ranks and they did what they do best – a race winin race 1.All eyes were on the Australian team asthey went into race 2 for the yellow fleet and continued theirstunning form with a second race win. But across in the 470 men redfleet Ryunosuke Harada/Yugo Yoshida (JPN) are matching the deliveryof the Australians with two race wins – which puts both teams onequal points leading overall after day 1. A 4,2 for Sime Fantela/IgorMarenic (CRO) places them in third overall.Page reflected on race 1, "There weresort of like little puffs and, randomly I guess, we got them betterthan most and were able to come through. We didn't do anything crazy,didn't grab a corner or anything like that but just got a little bitbetter than those boats around us and came through and it felt likethat most of the day - in control."Racing continues for the all three fleets onSunday. You can follow live tracking at www.openeuropeans2011.com,starting at 11 o'clock.
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