Luck of the Irish dries up in Perth

AFTER the inevitable highs and lows of the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships first set of medals were decided on Sunday, yesterday it was back down to the business of the qualification series.

The Laser Men, 49er skiffs and 470 Women started their world championships, all destined for a finale next Sunday.

In the Star class, Peter O’Leary and David Burrows finished the day hoping the luck that befell them in the first race is the worst they see this regatta.

In a violently shifting breeze, which was swung around by heavy thunder clouds, O’Leary and Burrows were on the wrong side of the first big change in wind direction and found themselves towards the back of the 41-boat Star fleet. They managed to recover to a weighty 33rd which the Irish duo hope will prove to be their discard score. But with a third in the second race they keep themselves in the top 10, even if they finished frustrated to have lost race winners Freddie Loof and Max Salminen and second-placed Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada in the final stages of the race.

“We ended up on the wrong side of the course on the first race, caught on a windshift. We stuck it out, thinking it would come back to the old direction, but it didn’t. It’s difficult to come back when you end up like that.”

Burrows crew reported later: “Conditions were very difficult to read because there was so much cloud and the breeze was blowing offshore with rain squalls coming through, thunder, lightning, we had it all.

“We seemed better in the second race. We were more in phase with what is going on and were first to the first mark. We dropped first to Freddie Loof at the bottom mark, we were first again to the third mark, but the wind filled from behind on the last run and both Loof and Scheidt got through, that was disappointing. “We are happy enough though, we are going very well at times. The result was not something that is broken, it just happens.”

In the 49er Class, Ireland’s Ryan Seaton and Matt MacGovern made a great start to the world championships with a second, fourth and 10th to lie fifth overall. They kept their heads in the building breeze and sea conditions. With a nasty steep choppy sea building up, the skiffs proved difficult to control with many capsizes.