420/470 Junior European Reaches Halfway Stage

Third day of race marked both the halfway stage of the 420/470 Junior European Championships in Sesimbra, Portugal as well as a change in recent race track conditions.

After a while of postponement ashore, the Sesimbra beach that was packed with all sunbathers had literally waved teams off as they did head out to one of the race tracks in a light breeze. As a forecast the sea breeze almost filled in, still it was later and lighter than previous days, thus making it a hunt to find those pressures and shifts, before the breeze could increase to around 17-18 knots.

Of the two races for all fleets, 420 Open, 420 U17, 470 Men and 470 Women, it saw some consolidation out front and also a sort of escalation in performance from all others in a showcase of young talent. This was definitely a crunch day for those 98 teams competing in the 420 Open fleet who were battling to make it into the top 49 teams who would thereby advance to gold fleet racing.

Racing is also to be continued on Monday, 9 July, with a scheduled start time of around 1400 hours and also 2 races for all fleets.

420 Open

With almost six races completed, the top placed 49 boats have already secured their place in the gold fleet, with all  the rest still racing in silver. While returning to the top billing are Spain’s Martín Wizner Pérez-Lafuente/Pedro Ameneiro Amezaga from a about 1,2 scorecard, giving a tiebreak to France’s Enzo Balanger/Gaultier Tallieu Gueydan, and Great Britain’s Niamh Harper/Ross Thompson in third.

This fleet is  considered packed with talent and each nation’s best sailor and also National Champions. Considering amongst the top three, Spain counts gold at the 2017 U17 420 Worlds, one of the 2017 Youth Worlds silver medal goes to Balanger/Tallieu, and Harper/Thompson are also holding 420 National Champions. The British pair is considered one of the six mixed teams that are competing.