2010 Sunfish Worlds report

Punt Ala, Italy

After unpacking the containers it became clear: the delivered dagger-boards are to big. Brent from Laser Performance finally made 1 dagger board oke. It took him a long time, so the work on the remainder dagger boards was outsourced to an Italian company. Friday evening the boats were assigned to the participants, so preparing could start. Saturday late (6 pm) afternoon this work was finished.

On Sunday the wind blew 5 Bft, causing big waves at the beach of Punta Ala, After 1 general recall the field started to sail to the windward buoy, but due to the stormy conditions all sailed strait to harbor.

Ellen Burks published a day-1 report on the website of the Texas Sunfish Racing Circuit: “Today started out with very little wind (yippee). The wind was shifting quite a bit, so the committee postponed until around noon. Then 3 fairly quick races. Two were double hotdogs finishing downwind, and the last one was a 5 leg humdinger with the wind building the whole race. When I got back to shore, Margi was waiting with my dolly. Thanks to the best dolly mama ever!”

Day 2 was a very long day on the water. The morning started with no wind and rain; racing was postponed till 1130. Then the wind blew from shore, so the sailors had to sail far away for the start line. There was a changing wind (direction and force) so it was hard to make correct choices. After the first race again a big delay due to course problems for the race committee. Finally 3 races were sailed, last start at 1715, everyone beached at 1900.

Day 3 was a top notch performance from The Boys from Curacao: Kevin van Otterdijk won race 7, Ard van Aanholt race 8 and Just van Aanholt race 9. David Mendelblat sailed 3-2-3, which closed the gap to Jonathan Martinetti (4-5-4) till 5 points.

On Friday only 1 race, which was won by David, followed by Ard van Aanholt and Kevin van Otterdijk. Jonathan sailed a 6th place! So equal points for David and Jonathan, but the latter with 3 first places and David with 2…. It is the first time the championship is decided this way.

In addition to the race winners, special trophies were awarded to: