Avantime ORC European Championship, early leaders back on top

Sandhamn – After a long postponement awaiting wind to start, the third inshore race of the Avantime ORC European Championship finally got underway in the mid-afternoon today, with results that have placed the early series leaders back on top.

A light and shifty 6-7 knots gave race managers enough breeze to set a course and get the race started, and those that did well in Classes 1 and 3 did so by convincing margins, while Class 2 ended being quite close.

In Class 1 Thomas Nilsson’s Norwegian team on their TP52 Trucknor Wolfpack used their speed advantage to get away from the pack and take the race by 1 minute 41 seconds in corrected time over local favorite Ralf Aspholm’s Landmark 43 Datacom. The win has put Trucknor in the lead in the class by a 4.5-point margin over fellow Norwegian Ole Martin Vordahl’s Cookson 50 Camilla, who rose through the rankings after their twin victories in yesterday’s two offshore races.

Class 3 was also won by an even larger margin – 4 minutes 24 seconds – by Estonian Aivar Tuulberg and his Arcona 340 Katarina II, with the remaining finishers left to fight amongst themselves for the remaining 2-3 minutes in corrected time. The early class leader – Mihkel Kosk’s Estonian team on his NM38 Sugar 2 – had their worst race of the series so far, losing 6th place by only 2 seconds, but their finish was still good enough to regain the class lead by only one point over Katarina. The top three entries in this class are currently within only 2.5 points.

But Class 2 was won by the closest margin, where Heinz-Peter Schmidt’s green Evento 42 Silva-Hispaniola from Germany, 2011 ORC European Champion, defeated the early series leader, Priit Tammemägi’s Estonian X-41 Premium, by only 36 seconds. But Premium‘s 2nd place was good enough to launch her back into the lead, though only by a 1-point margin over Bengt Falkenberg’s Swedish First 40 Teknova/Albatross.

Two more inshore races are planned for tomorrow, with only one more is needed for a discard in scores that may further shuffle the results. A total of seven inshore races are planned, with Saturday being the final day of competition.

For info and results click here.

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