Four New Zealand sailing crews made the medal race cut at the 2013 Delta Lloyd Regatta yesterday, round two of the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup series being sailed in Medemblik, the Netherlands.
Two 470 crews, Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie in the women's division and Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox in the men's, as well as both New Zealand's Laser representatives at this regatta (Andy Maloney and Sam Meech) will race for medals tonight (NZT).
Only the top six in each class will sail the all-important last race of the regatta, where each boat carries forward only their position in the fleet and any leading margins built over four days of racing are wiped.
"Pretty much it all starts again tomorrow with what is essentially a winner-takes-all final race," explains Jo Aleh. She and Powrie lead the fleet overall. "It was another blustery Medemblik day, with some lovely rain squalls to top it off. The last three races went okay, we were up there in the first race of the day but missed the huge left shift on the final beat and ended up with a sixth - our drop of the event."
"So we thought we better do a little better in the next two, which we did, with a 1, 1 to finish off with. We had some great battles with the British, and now we go into the 'final race' carrying a 1, with them in second."
