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The second day of racing in the Hobie® Great Grand Masters Class, the Grand Masters, the Women and Youth Classes in the 2016 Hobie 16 World Championship regatta in Dapeng, China was contested yesterday.
Conditions on the course were variable throughout the day with light puffs blowing across the bay when competitors arrived at the sailing venue. However, a fair 8kts picked up to get the fleet off from the starting line on time for race one.
As the boats sat ready for back to back races, the wind dropped and the fleet was directed back to shore by the Race Officer to have a lunch break. When the Hobie Cat® teams returned to the water for race two, a steady wind had picked up and conditions were solid with single and double stringing across the course.
At the finish of the race the, back to back flag flew and the cats sat into the wind behind the signals boat. The sky began to darken and rain looked imminent. Some spots fell as the wind gained in strength picking up to 15kts as the Women’s and then the Youth crossed the starting line in a perfect breeze.
The Great Grand Masters and Grand Masters lined up and jostled and shouted between the signals and pin boats and as the hooter sounded the fleet crossed the starting line double trapping in a solid 20kts, which filled the course. Just as the women were approaching gates for the first time in the 6GO course a huge wind shift occurred with an accompanying short squall hitting the course, which unfortunately caused race three to be abandoned.
There was no further racing for the day and with 5 races completed over the two days of the second series the total races run and won in the regatta so far reached the 20 mark.
Leading the Great Grand Masters is Grahame Southwick and Sharon Rayner from Fiji. Rod and Kerry Waterhouse from Australia lead the Grand Masters. Krystal Weir and Georgia Warren-Myers from Australia lead the Women’s class and Auxence Thomas and Noa Ancian from New Caledonia lead the Youth division.
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