Bangkok--16 Jan--Sail-World Asia
The event has attracted most of the top sailors in the world - professional and amateur - who think they are capable of sailing a single hander that will hit almost 30kts.
New Zealand's Peter Burling has worked out a nice lead on the fleet almost 160 boat fleet. After some interesting race management decisions triggered by the vagaries of the Melbourne weather, the race schedule is well behind. Nevertheless the Race Committee in its wisdom has decided not to sail on the rest day, Wednesday, and will try and complete the regatta on Thursday and Fridaywhen better weather is forecast.
The regatta is significant for the fact that amongst the 150+ sailors competing are some of the top America's Cup and Olympic sailors, together with many World Champions from other classes. Nathan Outteridge, Tom Slingsby, Dean Barker, Glenn Ashby, Blair Tuke, Peter Burling, Iain Jensen, Paul Goodison and Ray Davies. All, except Peter Burling, are competing in their first ever regatta in the foiling Moth, and the learning curve has been very steep.
There's several video's from each day with some outstanding images of the Moths in flight, and also the technology background to the class.
Again we will feature more of this in the next few days.
There has been plenty of other sailing action again on Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay.
Concurrent with the Moth Worlds, the International 14 class, are holding their World Championship at Geelong on the western end of the Bay and are experiencing the same vagaries of the weather as the eastern side of the bay. Although the class is no longer sailed in NZ, the I-14's are a major international class and the images from the series are impressive.
We also have a video update on the latest development with the repair of Team Vestas Wind. A close look at the video reveals the true extent of the damage caused by the grounding. Once she is in the Persico building facility, the rebuild can begin. But at present the task is to scope out the best plan of attack. The next six months are going to be very intense for her shore crew and management.
Follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com.
With the Volvo Ocean Race fleet now well out of the wind shadow of the Sri Lankan mountains and heading for Sumatra Indonesia and the Straits of Malacca, the Dongfeng guys have begun to extend their solid lead. Last night they were 34 nautical miles ahead of Team Brunel, that lead extended to 42.5 miles.
While the Chinese were last night gapping the fleet, she was 46 miles ahead of the Brunel boat was six miles ahead of MAPFRE with Abu Dhabi racing less than two miles back. Another six miles back to Alvimedica. There is only 12 miles between second and fifth. Team SCA is still the tail gunner, some 45 miles in arrears.
2014 - 2015 Barcelona World Race - Regularity and routine, such as they want it, has kicked in for the leaders of the Barcelona World Race as they race past the latitude of Recife, Brazil. Leaders Alex Thomson and Pepe Ribes were 260 miles east of the NE corner of Brazil and closest challengers Neutrogena, Guillermo Altadill and José Munoz are now about 80 miles further inshore.
There is still very little to separate the two IMOCA 60's in what is essentially a boat speed race, straight line, on a close reach in the SE'ly trade winds, scrolling parallel lines down the South Atlantic chart.
Sail-World is cutting over to our new format website - we are still flipping in and out of live test mode, for the past few weeks while the last few wrinkles are eradicated from the system.
The change is a response the shift in Internet use, and particularly the increasing use of mobile devices to read the latest sailing news.
At last count, 40% of our readership accessed Sail-World using a mobile device, and we been busy making changes to improve that experience.
Part of that change is to give readers the chance to select the format that best suits their style. If you click on the cog-wheel at the top right-hand corner of the site, you will have a choice of five background colours and three formats - the Classic Sail-World - Feature version - and Mobile (with full screen width and horizontal ads).
For those reading on devices lower in resolution to a seven inch tablet, there is a mobile version with horizontal ads.
We are still working through some issues, but always appreciate feedback.
Don't forget to check our website www.sail-world.com for all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.
Rob Kothe and the Sail-World team