Sailing: Dramatic start for the 49ers

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The glorious debut of the new showboat of Olympic sailing, the thrills-and-spills 49er, yesterday turned into a shambles.

What should have been the first parade of the spectacular skiffs blazing under a colourful United Nations array of gennakers degenerated into an argument off the water and the cancellation of racing today.

Kiwi sailors Dan Slater and Nathan Handley were in the protest room last night fighting for the first race of their Olympics to be scrapped because of wildly swinging winds.

Then the call came through that the 49ers would not be going to sea today - their beautiful kites, made up in the flags of their country, are falling to pieces.

Olympic organisers are rushing out today to buy new sails for all the 49er fleet after finding the colour chemicals in the gennakers were reacting with the cloth.

While that problem affects only the skiff sailors, the rest of the yachties had to contend with a bigger issue yesterday. The winds were in an absolute mess - a stressed sea breeze was struggling to exist.

But one Kiwi crew who were not complaining were the Solings, Rod Davis, Don Cowie and Alan Smith, who moved up to first equal. Team Davis posted another third placing but once again they had to flop around for four hours waiting for a decent puff to get them going.

It turned out to be a long first day for Slater and Handley as they took their case to the jury. With the British crew, the Kiwi skiff sailors objected to the race committee's decision to start the opening race in winds that swung 180 degrees.

Team manager Russell Green, Team New Zealand's rules expert, fought their case.

"We don't think they should be running races like that in the Olympic Games," he said.

"It wasn't a fair race and there's a bunch of others who think the same.

"We thought it was unlikely we would get the race put out, but we want to put the race committee on notice.

"They had a forecast that predicted exactly what happened so they should never have started it."

The New Zealanders did not fare well on the water yesterday, starting off with a 14th from 16 boats, and then a mediocre ninth.

The Kiwi Soling crew were just happy to survive in the deathly calm outside Sydney Heads and still stay near the top of the ladder.

"We did a good job, because it's so terrible out there," crewman Don Cowie said.

They now share the lead with the Dutch crew led by Roy Heiner, but are mindful that they have had just two races of six in the first qualifying step.