As expected the wind today was strong enough to blow dogs off chains. After a long postponement to allow the wind to decrease a little (although there seemed few signs of a decrease to me) a somewhat depleted fleet launched into a raunchy force 5-6 for two races. Mac later described the gusts as monsters (requiring the whole main to flog upwind to stay upright) while the wave pattern again caused problems; stopping the boats completely if you got it wrong. ...read more
Almost half the fleet thought discretion was the better part of valour while a couple of the fleet ventured out with reefed or cut down sails.
From the shore the leaders impressed as they flew down the run, skilfully flying their spinnakers and usually gunning successfully although even Mac and Simon managed to get one of their gybes horribly wrong; one of the Danish helms meanwhile managed to get his foot caught in the spinnaker sheet during the gybe with inevitable wet consequences.
A win and a second place apiece for Mac/Simon and Mogens/Anders means no change at the top with a couple of races to go in similar conditions tomorrow,
Top 5 after 8 races:
1st Mac and Simon (10)
2nd Mogens Just and Anders (11)
3rd Jorgen Iversen (36)
4th Christian Milert Hansen (45)
5th Niels Alslev (47)
-Tim Townsend
