Melges 24 World Championship, after three days the situation is still fluid

Middelfart – Day Three at the Melges 24 World Championship 2023 in Middelfart, Denmark offered unsteady weather, rain, cloudiness, and shifty winds challenging seriously both the crews (47 teams from 13 nations) and the Race Committee, in serious trouble while trying to set the marks. This all created some waiting time on the racecourse, abandoning the race on halfway and postponements. Both the teams and Race Committee had to be patient, but it paid off and the RC succeeded in completing another three races to have total of six on the score line including a discard coming into effect after six races sailed.

The first race of the day got finally off 40 minutes later than scheduled with a general recall. Next attempt was started under black flag at 12:45 with one boat black flagged.

It was a race of Norway, where three Norwegian Corinthian teams were on top. Three times Corinthian World Champion Storm Capital with Peder Jahre at the helm got off with a great start and was leading the race since the beginning until the finish with a solid lead over Race One winner Blow of Peder Nergaard followed by Børre Hekk Paulsen’s Helly Hansen Lisa II.

Pal Tonnesson, tactician on Storm Capital “It was an awesome first race! We had a great start up at the RC boat and played a couple of shifts out on the righthand side, were leading at the first upwind and after that it was just all about securing our position pulling out a little bit more on the downwind and last upwind and downwind was good too!”

Second race of the day was sailed up to Pacific Yankee (USA) of Drew Freides won the Race Five, but it became really tight until the last meters before the finish line. German White Room of Michael Tarabochia with Luis Tarabochia steering had a rocket-like start from the RC boat side and kept this lead firmly until the last meters of the race, when Pacific Yankee just a few meters before the finish line was lucky enough to snap the victory of the race in front of their nose followed by Italian Alessandro Rombelli on Stig (ITA) finishing third.

Drew Freides, owner and helmsman of Pacific Yankee (USA) „We didn’t win the race until may be 10 feet from the finish line. We got lucky, we gained a little bit in downwind, we were still behind and then we saw that the pin end of the line was much favoured and when they crossed us on the starboard, we figured out instead gybing on, we heated up to take their stern and we tack around the pin and we were lucky just because the pin end was favoured. We got them may be by 2 feet…”

On the third race again there was a big right hand shift again, where reigning Corinthian Melges 24 Corinthian Champion Ante Botica on Mataran 24 (CRO) managed the conditions very well, and scored their first victory at the Melges 24 World Championship in Middelfart, ahead of Bruce Ayres’ Monsoon (USA) and White Room of Michael Tarabochia, while White Room being the only team for the second time in the overall Top Three of the day.

Ivo Matic, tactician on Mataran 24 of Ante Botica: “It was a nice upwind, a little shifty, more wind, less wind – at the end it was good. And then it was a jib race all the way to the finish. On the halfway to the finish, we realized that we wouldn’t make it with our gennakers, then just before the finish line we put our gennaker down and finished with the jib. That was for the first time on the Melges 24 to finish the race with the jib and it was a great race for us!!”

Overall Drew Freides now leads with 20 points, tied in points with reigning World Champion Peter Duncan on Raza Mixta (USA), Chris Rast on War Canoe has 27 on third, Ante Botica 28 on fourth and Michael/Luis Tarabochia 33 on fifth.

Corinthian division is led by Ante Botica with 28 points followed by Michael/Luis Tarabochia 33 and Børre Hekk Paulsen 41.

Top Ten after 6 races (1 discard) including Corinthians:
1.    USA865 PACIFIC YANKEE – Drew Freides – 20
2.    USA829 RAZA MIXTA – Peter Duncan – 20
3.    USA841 WAR CANOE – Chris Rast -27
4.    CRO649 MATARAN 24 – Ante Botica (Corinthian) -28
5.    GER677 WHITE ROOM – Luis Tarabochia (Corinthian) -33
6.    NOR697 HELLY HANSEN LISA II – Børre Hekk Paulsen – (Corinthian) – 41
7.    USA851 MONSOON – Bruce Ayres – 42
8.    USA864 DARK ENERGY – Laura Grondin – 45
9.    CRO739 PANJIC – Luka Šangulin – 49
10.  EST790 LENNY – Tõnu Tõniste – 50 (Corinthian)

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