SB3 Worlds

Last week I got the chance to return to Largo del Garda to team up with one of my good coaching mates, Mark Rushall along with his wife Liz and Niki McGreggor to sail the Laser SB3 Worlds.

105 Boats entered with some hot competition from RSA, ITA and GER along with a 50 boat British contingent lead by last years World Champion , Craig Burton. The standard, was pretty reasonable considering these one design boats don't carry the same international appeal of say the Melges24. What they do offer is a cost effective alternative and a more Corinthian approach to racing (not entirely Corinthian mind you!). One boat stood out from the rest and that was the' 3 Sad Old Men in a Boat' with Jerry Hill at the helm and Grant Rollerson (bow) and Joe Lewellyn (main). They sailed really well and did so with off the shelf new kit which is encouraging for the class. The concern with many manufactures classes is that top teams always manage to flex the rules and the SB3 has suffered from this in the past. Its hard to explain but I think 'some boats are more equal that others' say's it all.

On board Rushall.net we had the unusual situation of having 2 coaches in one boat with 2 girls as the 'Jam' in the coach sandwich. It was great to sail with Mark, who I've worked with in delivering Tactics modules with TeamGBR. With one training day and a practice regatta in Lymington we were far from the 'Gun' team. We did, however, have a very good understanding of the lake and realistic expectations of a top 10 finish.

Initially the fleet split into 2 for quification. This format helpes select a top 50 to go through to finals and means that you avaoid having 100+ boats on the same line. I think we qualified 14th which was solid but we'd been struggling to get 1st beats right. We were in good company as even Italian Americas cup tacticians we picking the wrong side of the beat despite having sailed on the lake for 20+ years. Garda has a very predictable wind with one side of the lake tending to pay depending on the wind direction and Windward Mark position. The difficulty in this regatta was the 1st mark being laid in the middle of the lack with both gain features effecting the approach. Coin tossing ended up being the most consistent approach to strategy. Well, that's not entirely fair and the right of the course was tending to pay but to lead the group out you needed to put some risk on that start and that wasn't our style. Mark and I both like to be conservative and work the middle of the course up the 1st beat and we executed that plan well!

The penultimate day was perfect Garda racing with a pumping 20kt breeze on the lake and the course set on the far side under the cliffs. We had a great day with Niki and Liz helping us move through the fleet with top 5 boat handling to record a Jumbo 7,4,7, on the score sheet. Its amazing, so much lake and only one was to go up wind and downwind. The racing started to look like river racing with 50 boats all short tacking up the side of the lake. After a brilliant day we moved ourselves into 9th and in sight of our top 10 goal. That needed celebrating so we headed off to an old 49'er chums near Malchesnie. Luca's family run restaurant was beautiful and a must for anyone passing, just mention my name...Restorante da Umberta.

Day 5 and the final day started with big breeze again. Once again we got the 1st beat slightly wrong but lead our side in to round in the teens. With some tight downwind racing we moved up to finish 13th with all to play for on the final race. Up front things were getting really tight with all of the contenders carrying a big discard. The final race started with both sides paying but we really suffered in the middle. We rounded in the 40's but with the breeze switching off we worked the puff and patches down the run and moved into the mid teens at the gate. As we approached Liz noticed the T flag flying and having read the race instructions we headed straight for the finish, unlike the rest of the fleet. There was a little tension in the boat as we neared the line wondering if we would get a gun or not. 2 boats had seen our move and rolled us into the line but the gun sounded and a 3rd place guaranteed us a top 10 finish. Its also caused mass confusion ahead with many of the other top boats scoring DNF's due to continuing to race and finishing out of the time limit. The wait started, could we move up further, who would win and who would be the biggest casualty.

Well, the right boat won with Jerry hanging on to finish just ahead of Ian Ainsley from Race Ahead (a really cool project to get disadvantaged kids into sailing in south Africa). The biggest winner was Sarah Allen who had sailed a really consistent series and shot up the results to 4th as other teams carried high scores after a DNF. The biggest loser was Rodian Luca and the team Russia who plummeted to 2nd to 8th Occhhh.

So, that was that. A fantastic regatta and a quick exit to Milan to try and catch a flight home to the Mrs. Next week its back to reality as Team GBR prepares for the Olympic Test Event 2 years out from the Games.

For more on this regatta visit the webite on: http://www.circolovelatorbole.com/en/