The "advantage" of being the pathfinder

Swede Ebbe Rosen gets a comfortable win

The bay of Cascais had one of it's classic days this afternoon, with winds from West around ten knots, for the sixth race of Quebramar - 505 World Championship, that ends next friday, 28th of September.

The swedes Ebbe Rosen / Olle Wenrup took the maximum benefit of being today's race pathfinders and got themselves a very comfortable win, after getting in front of the fleet right at the start and being able to control de distance from the main opponents.

For the swedish helm, «the things went extremely well today, but we got a advantage of being the pathfinder. To tell the truth, we were already expecting that this race would go well for us, having in consideration the winds in this zone».

«It is always complicated to compete with this top sailors, like Wolfgang Hunger, but we managed to keep a safe distance from the others. This Summer we didn't sail much and, usually, it's only in the middle of the championships that we start to sail properly...», said Ebbe Rosen.

The germans Wolfgang Hunger / Holger Jess ended at second place, increasing the advantage in the front of the overall classification to 17 points between them and the swedes Krister Bergstrom / Thomas Moss, that came 11th in todays race.

In third place came Dietrich Scheder-Bieschin / Rainer Goerge, from Germany, which allowed them to reach the eight spot on the overall.

The portuguese team Afonso Domingos / Henrique Anjos got another good result as they ended in eight. Domingos / Anjos are now 24th of the overall classification where Álvaro Marinho e Tiago Marcelino maintain the first position of the portuguese teams, as they stand at the 21st position.

There are scheduled two races for tomorrow, thursday (27th of September), and the first begins at 12 p.m..

Graffic with the evolution of the 6th race

Aires Afonseca

Hunger/Jess strengthen their lead in the Championship

Portuguese well off in the Microsoft Race

With a very characteristic Northwestern Cascais wind blowing off the Guia area, at about 20 km/h, the Microsoft race (6th of the 505 Quebramar World Championship) took place, with the Swedish Team, Ebbe Rosen / Olle Wenrup, winning for the first time in this competition. Among the Portuguese, Afonso Domingos / Henrique Anjos and Alvaro Marinho / Tiago Marcelino ended the race in 14th and 21st respectively. Wolfgang Hunger / Holger Jess, with the second position won in yesterday's race, strengthened their lead in the championship standing with a 17 point advantage to the second positioned.

Afonso Domingos and Henrique Anjos were once again the best Portuguese team, attaining the 14th final position: «During the last bree we simply had no speed and ended up losing two positions. Other than that we maintained regular and are actually rising in the overall standings. Our major goal in the 505 Quebramar World Championship is to end among the first 20», affirmed Afonso Domingos at the end of the Microsoft race.

Alvaro Marinho and Tiago Marcelino continue steady and finished today's race in the 21st position: «We started well but had some difficulty in maintaining the speed. We lost quite a bit to our opponents. I believe this is already a positive result and our goal was mainly to have some fun and learn a new class. If the wind holds I think we have a chance at the first 20», remarked Alvaro Marinho.

«I won quite an advantage in the start and from then on, all we had to do was maintain the gap and pay attention to our closest opponents. I am very pleased with this result and hope to win again in the remaining races», said the Swede sailor, winner of today's Microsoft race, Ebbe Rosen.

Two more races of the 505 Quebramar World Championship will be sailed tomorrow.

DCA

Graffic with the evolution of the 6th race

German pair extend lead at 505s
Wolfgang Holder and Holger Jess finished second and keep up the pressure

The overnight leaders, Wolfgang Holder and Holger Jess of Germany, increased their lead at the 505 World Championship in Cascais, Portugal. Finishing second behind Ebbe Rosen and Olle Wenrup of Sweden they opened out their lead over Krister Bergstrom and Thomas Moss who are now under pressure from boats immediatly behind them.

In near perfect conditions for racing Rosen and Wenrup were pathfinders and benefited greatly from the right hand bias to the course with more wind pressure nearer the shore and less adverse current. Consequently at the windward mark they lead by 50 yards from Brett Van Munster and Geoff Lange (AUS) and Dietrich Scheider-Bieschin and Rainer Goerge(GER).

Simon Payne and Bill Masterman were the first UK boat in the top ten with Ian Pinnell and Tim Hancock in the late teens, being hit by an American boat at the start was a partial reason. Bergstrom and Moss had another bad first beat rounding the first mark in the 20's.

Downwind the fleet split but it was those going down the right in the stronger current that benefited as opposed to the left in the stronger wind pressure. Rosen lead at the leeward mark and Pinnell improved to seventh nipping inside Payne at the leeward mark.

The race then settled down to become somewhat processional with Rosen easily able to dictate the race by heading out to the right hand side of the course. Holder and Jess came up from third at the leeward mark to second and Pinnell slipped to tenth with Bergstrom working his boat very hard upwind performing body movements that are normally seen on Lasers, only four places behind.

The wind had now increased to the top end of a Force3 and although the top four positions remained static, Payne moved up to seventh. After another couple legs of the course Rosen had a extended his lead to several hundred yards at the finish, Hunger finished second, third was fellow German Scheider-Bieschin with Van Munster fourth.

Payne was the top UK performer finally finishing sixth splitting the Americans Thompson and Hamlin. Pinnell repeated Bergstroms trick from earlier in the week by deliberately dropping a place to finish tenth and consequently will be pathfinder tomorrow. If the wind is from the same direction then he should stand a very good chance of winning Race 7.

Once again the entire fleet was spread over a large distance, of at least a leg of one mile, which demonstrates the difference between the top Five-oh sailors and those that regard 505 sailing as purely recreational.

A pattern is starting to emerge within the Championship, Hunger is stringing together a consistent series and must now look as favourite to win the title. Bergstom is having to work extremely hard after, by his standards, poor first beats, Pinnell is hanging in there and clearly has the boatspeed of the best in the world, again a good first beat would give him a good platform to work from rather than having to work his way up from the late teens.

Two races are planned for today (Thursday) with the final race of the Championships on Friday.

Overall positions 6 races sailed 1 Discard

1 Wolfgang Hunger and Holger Jess GER 8788 13pts
2 Krister Bergstrom and Thomas Moss SWE 8655 30pts
3 Ian Pinnell and Tim Hancock GBR 8774 31pts
4 Daniel Thompson and Andrew Zinn USA 8762 31pts
5 Howard Hamlin and Mike Martin USA 8714


Author : © Steve Arkley. Published : 27 Sept 2001