Sailing: Tough day at the office on first day of gold fleet racing

June 10, 2024

Day four of the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta (Thursday 9 June) saw the competition step up a level, with Britain’s sailors enjoying mixed fortunes on this first day of gold fleet racing.

SailforGold2011_057 Ben Ainslie continued his confident form to extend his overall lead in the Finn class to thirteen points over teammate Giles Scott; John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas maintained the top spot on the Paralympic Sonar class leaderboard, while four further Skandia Team GBR crews are in medal-winning positions with two days of the regatta left to run.

Weymouth and Portland continued to deliver ideal racing conditions on this fourth day of World Cup competition, but with racing intensifying there was a shake-up in the overall standings in a number of classes.

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Read related features:

Sailing: Five top spots for GB after Weymouth’s ‘Big Wednesday’

Sailing: GBR sailors improve on a breezy second day at Skandia Sail for Gold

Sailing: A Slow Start for the Skandia Sail for Gold

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Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor completed their women’s match racing gold group to book a quarter-final bout tomorrow against the Dutch trio skippered by Mandy Mulder. Macgregor, the current women’s match racing World Champion, is looking forward to some close racing in the knockout stages of competition.

“There’s a lot of excitement around the boat park at Skandia Sail for Gold,” Macgregor explained. “It’s a big event for a lot of teams and I think that really shows this year, that everyone is taking it that much more seriously.

“The competition in the match racing is really start to heat up now and I think within the top eight we can’t really separate the teams. It’s going to be a very important day with quarter-finals and semi-finals and none of the matches are going to be easy!”

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark remain in the podium spots the 470 women’s event with Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes in seventh.

In the penultimate day of racing for the Paralympic classes, Skandia Team GBR’s Sonar trio of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas couldn’t quite match their pace from Wednesday in their opening two races, picking up a fifth and an eighth before closing the day with their fourth race win of the series to keep them on top in the results table.

Britain’s leading SKUD duo Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell posted three second places from their three races to remain second behind the Australia team of Daniel Fitzgibbon Liesl Tesch, while in the 2.4mR event, Megan Pascoe is eighth and Helena Lucas ninth.

Charlotte Dobson remains fifth in the Laser Radial event, while Bryony Shaw is the top-placed Brit in the RS:X women’s windsurfing event.

Louise Hudson, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine

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