Earlybird leads after Day 1 of the Swan 45 Worlds

09 September 2008

The Swan 45s are sailing their World Championship this week and the Sailing Instructions show twelve races planned, including the Long Island Race on Thursday that is non-discardable. Three windward/leeward courses were the order of the day: 8, 6.8 and 7.2 nm in length respectively. The races were conducted in a light easterly wind that tracked right throughout the day, starting out around 8-9 knots, but finishing around 6-7 knots. More onerous on the thinking, than the physical although the Sardinian sun has a way of making even the lightest of wind days tiring. One boat stood out, Hendrik Brandis and Christian Nagel’s Earlybird. She had a poor start in the first race finishing third. Suitably annoyed by this slip, she went onto win the second and third races to leave her comfortably at the top of the heap going into tomorrow.

Andrea Masi’s Ulika (ITA) lies in second having posted a 5,3,3 an identical trend to her German counterpart even if not so good. Ominously, and unsurprisingly, the third boat in the standings is Marco Salvi’s Vertigo. Vasco Vascotto’s stage for the week. Salvi’s crew were not on fire today, but a 4,7,4 keeps them well in the hunt with a possible nine more races to come. The only other race winner was Tea Ekengren-Sauren’s Blue Nights (FIN). Two less promising results leave Ekengren lying in eighth place overnight.

Earlybird’s tactician is Sten Mohr, his thoughts on the day were as follows, “we had a very nice day today, we decided to go out early and lined up with another boat just to get comfortable with the speed. We had two weather forecasts so we could just watch and see what was developing. We were able to pull off three really good starts, shoot ahead of the fleet. With the 3rd in the first race we were very happy and two wins to follow up that is just incredible.”

With that kind of sailing you might think Mohr has lots of experience sailing on the Costa Smeralda and on Swan 45s in particular, not so, “it is my first time on the boat and my first time in Porto Cervo, so I am enjoying the surroundings and the race-course and just learning myself.” Ouch. That must hurt some of the more experienced tacticians out there today despite Mohr being an experienced America’s Cup sailor.

For results:http://www.yccsresults.com/swan08/swan_b.htm