News 420 Victory to Alec Brodie/Xavier Winston Smith (AUS) at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne

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420 Victory to Alec Brodie/Xavier Winston Smith (AUS) at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne

15
Dec 2014

The breeze returned to Port Phillip early on the final day of racing at the ISAF Sailing World Cup – Melbourne and Sail Melbourne for the Medal races for six classes and final races for the Invited classes.

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2014 ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne
ALL EVENT INFORMATION
Twenty-four 420 teams compete at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne

Competitors arriving at Sandringham Yacht Club on Sunday morning were greeted by a decent NW breeze which is forecast to swing around to the south-west and at 1000 hours the transition had begun.

After too much wind and then not enough wind hampered their race programme, the 420 teams were hoping for breeze to complete their series. Going in the final day of racing and with only 3 races completed, Alec Brodie/Xavier Winston Smith were leading the 25-boat fleet of youth sailors. In second overall were Nia Jerwood/Lisa Smith, and holding onto third and two points behind were Nicholas Sharman/James Grogan.

With the breeze up, all was set for a 3 race day. Not a good start for Brodie/Winston Smith who took a UFD penalty in race 4. Sharman/Grogan took a 5th place finish, but knew they needed better to upgrade themselves into first or second on the leaderboard. A 2nd place for Jerwood/Smith kept them safely in second overall.

Onto race 5 and Sharman/Grogan pushed themselves around the track to take out the race win, and followed up with another win in the final race 6. The pair delivered everything they could to walk away with the series victory, and postioned themselves on an equal  11 points with Brodie/Winston Smith, with the tiebreak advantage going to Brodie/Winston Smith. Jerwood/Smith finished in third overall , just 1 point behind the leading two teams.

Four girls teams in the overall top 10 leaderboard shows just how close the racing in the open fleet.

The 420 fleet is one of 13 invited class fleets at Sail Melbourne and mixing it up with some of the world’s top Olympic sailors who are competing as part of the ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne, from 7-14 December 2014.