Semaine Olympique Francaise -European Champion moves into lead in Finn

10:06 PM Tue 27 Apr 2010 GMT

'Finn - Semaine Olympique Francaise 2010' Guillaume Durand

After the third day at the 2010 SOF Hyeres, the Finn class has sailed only two races out of a possible six due to extremely light winds and numerous cancelled races.

A win in Tuesday's only race for the 2009 European Champion Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO) moves him up to the top of the leaderboard, while everyone else was, in the words of sixth placed Bryan Boyd (USA), 'avoiding a catastrophe'.

After another early morning postponement, the Finns finally got a race off just before 15.00 in 8-10 knots of wind. Nine boats picked up black flags including yesterday's race winner Zach Railey (USA). Florian Raudaschl (AUT) picked up his second black flag to end the day securely propping up the rest of the fleet.

After a long and testing race, Kljakovic Gaspic finally led across the finish line from the 2007 European Champion Eduard Skornyakov (RUS), with Alejandro Muscat (ESP) in third.

An eighth place was enough for the young Ioannis Mitakis (GRE), who will defend his Junior European title in Split, Croatia in just two weeks time, to hold onto second place on equal points with the Croatian.

Mitakis said, 'Today was a very difficult day. The weather was very shifty and the wind was really light. I didn't expect to do so well but my speed is very good and so are my starts, so this is bringing good results.' Third placed Gasper Vincec (SLO) has a three, nine so far.

Finn - Semaine Olympique Francaise 2010 - Guillaume Durand

Boyd was colourful in his description of the day. 'In conditions that can only be charitably referred to as a 'dog's breakfast' the race committee did about all they could do to get one race."

"At about 30 seconds to the start, a massive lefty arrived and most of the fleet flopped to port to get across the line. I have a hard time piecing the happenings of the first beat together, but suffice it to say that about 10 boats on the right got into a private seam of pressure and were gone."

"The rest of us tacked on about 17 different shifts, and tried to avoid the myriad of windless holes to scoop up the scraps left by the top group.'

'I managed to pick my way through the minefield and lead the second pack of boats and round the top mark in 11th. Comparatively, the breeze steadied a bit for the middle lap of the race, and I was able to close the gap a bit on the leaders."

"Heading up the third beat, I spotted and picked up my own little seam of pressure on the right to leapfrog about four boats that languished on the left. One last good run got me inside of a French boat at the gybe to the finish, and I held on to cross the line in sixth."

"All in all, entirely acceptable given the variable conditions. Today was all about
avoiding a catastrophe.'

Racing continues - hopefully - until the medal race for the top 10 on Friday.

Results after two races:

1 CRO 524 KLJAKOVIC GASPIC Ivan 10.00
2 GRE 77 MITAKIS Ioannis 10.00
3 SLO 5 VINCEC Gasper 12.00
4 CRO 25 MISURA Marin 18.00
5 ESP 100 TRUJILLO Rafael 19.00
6 USA 1 BOYD Bryan 20.00
7 FRA 115 LE BRETON Thomas 21.00
8 ESP 7 MUSCAT Alejandro 26.00
9 SLO 573 ZBOGAR Vasilij 26.00
10 BUL 855 VANGELOV Dimitar 27.00

by Robert Deaves