In all groups A-B-C the results were exciting Eugeny BRASLAVETS / Igor MATVIENKO (UKR) had a great day by sailing a 2nd and 1st position in their Group. The Spanish Men also seemed to be in the mood to perform best results on home waters.
Gustavo MARTINEZ DORESTO / Dimas WOO finished 1st and 2nd in today’s races which places them in a 2nd overall position, 7 points behind the Italian leaders after 1 discard. Marc PATINO / Juan MORENO OMAR finished 2nd in race 5, however they finished 12th in race 6, which now has been calculated as a discard. They currently take the 6th overall rank,

Remarkable are the results of the Japanese sailors at this 470 Worlds event. Ath the Mens’s Fleet, 62th ISAF World Ranked Taisei SANBU / Motoharu TAKAMURA is currently ranked 8th after a quite interesting serie of 5-2-14-2-3 and an unfortunate 23 that was discarded.

Nick ROGERS / Joe GLANFIELD from Great Brittain are well known for their excellent performance in the 470 Class. For their doing, they had a bad start in the event, but they now progress and climb to a 13th overall position by today’s results of 1 and 3 in their Group.

Winners of the Open Europeans in Brest, July this year, USA’s Paul FOERSTER / Kevin BURNHAM seem to lose grip on their promising start as they fall to a 16th overall position.

Many eyes are focused on Simon COOKE / Peter NICHOLAS. The Title defenders from New Zealand seem to have a start up problem and climb slowly from a 34th rank yesterday, to a 24th overall position through a 7th position in race 6 today.

Italy’s Gabrio ZANDONA / Andreas TRANI keep on reigning this 470 Men’s Worlds event, although today they had their first “off” race by a 20th position in race 6. Gabrio smiles and says: “ It is much too early to say that we are ruling the event. The last day of racing today, we almost did everything wrong and ended up as 20th. Also we have now “lost” our discard and everything is possible. In the first five races, we were lucky to be everywhere at the right place at the same time, in race 6 it was the opposite. We hope to end up within the top 5, that is a reasonable target that we must be able to accomplish. You know, it is easier to attack at the beginning of a serie with very good results, then defending and gaining perfect results in the final phase.”

Gabrio started sailing in the Optimist and won a European Championship once. After, he started sailing the 420 for two years before he chose for the 470 class, with different crews. Andrea has a same kind of background prior to the 470 class.

“ Andrea and I started sailing together in 1999 as we were both in the Italian Navy. “ Gabrio continues: ” A special program allowed us to go sailing and training in our army period. You see……., We were at the right place, at the right time”

Tomorrow the finals will start. During three days, 5 races are scheduled. After the handling of protests, groups of Gold Fleets will be known. The procedure of qualifications of countries will be announced soon by ISAF. This stage where qualification rankings are know is of major importance as each team in the the Gold fleet cannot end up at a lower rank then the limit of Gold Fleet sailors. For the Men this limit is 35, for Women 25.

In the 470 Men’s Fleet there are still many teams that have chances to win the Title, The Italian Men in front. The lead that the Greek Women have already taken over their Fleet is bigger then with the Men. In addition to the difference of points of current rankings, the weight of the one only discard to be granted, could play a major rol.

For more information, visit the event web site at www.cadizworlds2003.com or the Intl 470 Class web site at www.470.org

Source: Rick van Wijngaarden, 470 class journalist