SAILING/DRAGON GOLD CUP AND ISORA SERIES:NOBODY, IT seems is immune from a bad result and the Brewin Dolphin Dragon Gold Cup remains effectively wide open going into today's final race at Kinsale Yacht Club.
Topping the leaderboard is Britain’s Lawrie Smith, who has declared for Glandore Harbour, with his crew Tim Tavinor and Joost Houweling, after placing second yesterday and moving into the overall lead with a 12-point advantage.
After a consistent week of all top-10 results, previous overall leader Dmitry Samokhin, with Andrey Kirilyuk and Aleksey Bushuev from St Petersburg, were the latest top contenders to have the finger of ill-luck pointed at them when they placed 20th yesterday, thus joining the ranks of top Dragon sailors such as Smith, previous overall leader Tommy Mueller and class master Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen.
The Russians slipped to second overall with Mueller, and crew Vincent Hoesch with Michael Lipp, taking up third place, 20 points behind Smith and his crew.
So it appears that the final race will come down to a battle between the first- and second-placed boats, except that this is the Gold Cup and a completely different dynamic applies.
For a start, almost uniquely, there is no race discard that allows a team to throw away their worst score. A shocker by Smith today could overturn the results table yet again and conceivably allow any of a bunch of closely grouped top-10 boats to emerge as overall winner.
The key to this week of racing, according to many crews is to chip away, each day producing steady top six or top 10 places and avoid deep results that weigh down a boat’s score.
Smith has done better than that however, so far counting two fifths plus a second and a race win. His 18th place came the day after he tore ligaments in his knee, which continue to bother the former round the world race veteran skipper but not to the extent of affecting his results since Monday.
The rearrangement of the leaderboard has seen Irish crews squeezed once again and none are inside the top 10 going into the final. Like the overall winner stakes, this too could easily change.
Yesterday saw a stellar performance by Andrew Craig’s Chimaera, with Brian Mathews and Mark Pettit, who won the race and moved into 11th overall and best of the Irish crews.
Clubmate Martin Byrne, with Adam Winkelmanr and Pedro Andrade, had a 27th yesterday, dropping them down to 12th yet still within striking distance of a creditable top-10 result.
Kinsale YC commodore Cameron Good, with Simon Furney and Henry Kingston, retain the overall lead of the Corinthian event in 14th overall after Graham Bailey had a 47th place yesterday.
Conditions off the Old Head of Kinsale course yesterday were fresh with rolling waves on the offshore side. If repeated today, the winning formula for the day will be to go to the right-hand side of the course, out of the steeper waves and worst of the flood tide.
