KEY POINTS:
When the committee boat begins to sink, you have to wonder whether the Olympic regatta is quite set up for high winds.
That was the feeling after a sublime-to-the-ridiculous day at the Qingdao regatta when the venue's frustratingly light airs gave way to a 15 to 20-knot wind
- just the sort of conditions Kiwi sailors like and which helped or maintained three sailors in possible medal positions.
But, with three races planned in most classes, only two or one were held in some and none in others and team manager Russell Green was critical of some manufacturing defects which helped curtail racing when the Kiwis were keen for more.
Green was poking a barb at the Chinese boat which acts as the committee boat and the fact that it started to sink when the wind got up yesterday. As it was filling up with water, it had to return to base, one of the factors behind delays to races yesterday. Conditions also deteriorated and driving rain meant visibility was poor.
Green has been highly complimentary about the race committee and its members, saying they have organised and run the regatta as well as any he has ever seen, but he wasn't quite so effusive about some of the local equipment the international committee has to use, like the committee boat.
"It looks to us like the equipment and the inventory that is here for the committee to use isn't up to running races in higher winds," said Green. "The problem is that we are not getting enough racing," he said. "And the problem with that is that it could destroy some of our hopes."
While the organisers are trying to fit in all 10 races in each class and then a medals race, they are running out of time, caused mostly by delays for lack of air. The Finn class was cut short to eight races to keep up with the calendar, ending any hopes New Zealand's Dan Slater had of forcing his way back into the top 10 who contest the medals.
The same thing could happen to Andrew Murdoch who, after a fine start and a horror next three races, returned to form with a fifth in race six of the Lasers yesterday. However he is in 12th overall and needs to get into the top 10 for the medals race. Harder to do if his series is curtailed at eight races or less.
But Tom Ashley, Barbara Kendall and Jo Aleh are all well placed in their fleets and remain in medal contention.
Ashley leads in the RS:X boardsailing, after a fourth and a third in races six and seven yesterday. In the sixth, he rocketed up from a perilous position in 28th around the third mark, using his skills in the wind to shoot right up to fifth place by the next mark.
He did the same thing on Saturday, in lighter wind, showing that this skilled boardsailor has the talent to do the job, no matter what the weather. Kendall is similarly maintaining her composure and sailed to a fourth and third in races six and seven yesterday and now stands fifth overall. Jo Aleh, in the Laser Radials, came 14th in her sixth race yesterday but is still in third place overall after leading the fleet previously. She remains a real chance. It is too early to tell with only three races run out of 10 but Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams are second overall but did not race yesterday.
