From a weather perspective it was a repeat of day 1. One race in the morning, postponement, then racing again in the afternoon. Only difference was that the long swell from yesterday was replaced with a much shorter chop.

For all fleets, race 3 got underway in 5-6 knots, and steadily decreased with the final boats crossing the line in about 2.5 knots. Postponement ashore and then by around 1700 hours the breeze had increased to between 10-15 knots.

Open Fleet
All change in the top three overall in the 77 boat Open fleet with another 2 races completed and Greece leading the charge.

At just fifteen and sixteen years old, the Kavas Brothers from Greece swept the fleet behind them with 1,2 finishes. Older brother George put it down to their good downwind sailing, whilst younger brother George explained that age plays no part in decision making, commenting “we are both in charge.”

Moving up into second are Clovis Leroux/Aymeric Paruit (FRA), with Israel's Gal Cohen/Hadar Moran in third.

Familiarity along with great sailing has helped push home team Luis Niza/Paulo Baptista (POR) back into contention at the front of the fleet with two second place finishes shifting them to fourth overall. Commenting on their race 3 result, Niza said, “We made a good start and then got clear wind to the left upwind. We were good in the downwind, both with tactics and boatspeed – we were fast.” Niza who sails from the host club has clear ambitions, “We need to make more good results! We want to be in the top 10. We don't have much time to train and that would be a good result for us.”

Conversely, there is continued disappointment elsewhere, none less than French team Etienne Lher/Hugo Lauras whose great results of 3,4 in races 2 and 3 are sandwiched between an OCS in race 1 and a BFD in race 4. Coming into the Championships with high hopes of a top result, today's outcome drops them further down the leaderboard.

After several general recalls, the Race Committee were forced to run black flag starts and the overall outcome was not pretty. Race 3 delivered BFD penalties for six boats, but this increased to an unfortunate 16 boats for race 4. A disastrous outcome for Julian Stuckl/Adrian Hoesch (GER) whose double BFD error delivers them a drop down the leaderboard of forty-one places, to end day 2 in 56 overall.

ISAF Youth World Champions Jordi Xammer/Alex Claville (ESP) made a solid recovery from a broken jib just before the start of race 4. Their subsequent bad start saw them chasing hard off the line to catch the fleet and eventually finish fifteenth to end the day in tenth overall.

A further two races are scheduled on Monday for the Open fleet to decide the qualification through to the gold and silver fleets for the final series.

Provisional Top 10 Overall