King finishes fourth at Warnemunder Woche

1:05 PM Wed 8 Jul 2009 GMT

'Gabrielle King (AUS)' Richard Gladwell Click Here to view large photo

71 Sailors from 12 countries travelled to Warnem?nder Woche 4-7/7/09 for the final event before the Radial Europeans where measurement starts on 9/7/09.

Seven of the eight races scheduled were completed in light winds which rarely saw hiking conditions. this resulted in a high scoring regatta.

Day one and race one was led by Natalia Szymczyk from Poland. However a mistake on the penultimate leg allowed Mantas Pekunas from Lithuania through. Up the final beat the lead two boats tacked too early for the finish line with Jon Emmett from the UK getting the lay line right. Pekunas managed to pinch around the pin end just holding off Emmett while Szymczyk had to settle for third.

Race two and last year's Bronze Medallist Olympian Sarah Seyaert from France made no mistakes to win the second race from Emmett who managed to pull through the fleet after a poor start. Gabrielle King from Australia finished third, a constant day which saw her lying second overnight.

Day two and Emmett led the race from start to finish with Anna Weinsieher from Poland in second; third place again went to the constant King.

However for the final race on Sunday the fleet were badly behaved which resulted in some 31 competitors black flagged including King. Steyart was not concerned by the threat of a black flag and had a good start which she capitalised on to take her second race win from Katarzyna Tykinska from Poland and Paul Weber from Germany.

The third day saw perhaps the lightest and the windiest race of the series with the first race of the day taking around an hour and a half in rarely less than 3 knots of breeze. Emmett won from Anastasiia Gafenko from the Ukraine in her best race of the championship. Tylinska pulled herself through to third
place, making the points at the top extremely close.

Race six was once again won by last year's winner Emmett, but a second place for Steyaert meant she was still in the running. Third place went to Christian Engelke from Germany who was second for most of the race but could not quite hold off the determined Steyaert.

Racing on the final day was delayed whilst yacht racing started at the harbour entrance but racing was started as soon as possible. Emmett and Tylinska led from the left but near the top of the beat the breeze came from the right allowing Chris Bauermeister from Germany and several other boats to cross.

The breeze then became patchy with Bauermeister sailing off to a commanding lead with Tylinska just getting into the pressure to secure second, bringing her to within one point of Steyaert overall. Third place went to Weinzieher. So with one race to go Emmett had won the event but the battle for second place was going to be closer.

As if on schedule the breeze filled in by 90 degrees to the left so the race team did not have enough time to reset the course and get the fleet away before the two o'clock deadline for the final start.

So the results stood as of race seven.

Overall results:

1st Jon Emmett GBR 14pts
2nd Sarah Stayaert FRA 26pts
3rd Katarzyna Tylinska POL 27pts
4th Gabrielle King AUS 32pts
5th Mantas Pekunas LTU 50pts
6th John Booth GBR 56pts
Other GBR: Ralph Bonfield 29th

www.laser.org.uk/

by Jon Emmett

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King finishes fourth at Warnemunder Woche

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