MEDIA RELEASE THURSDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2005
EXCITING SAILING IN SEMI-FINALS OF CHEVROLET HOBIE WORLDS
After the semi-final rounds of the Chevrolet Hobie Cat 16 World Championships were extended due to adverse weather conditions, racing got underway shortly after 10h00 on the penultimate day of the championships. The light westerly breeze held steady at approximately 12 knots as the 112 teams took to the water to battle it out for a spot in the top 56. The finals will be sailed in Nelson Mandela Bay on Friday, 4 November 2005.
The weather gods smiled on the competitors and the winds continued for the duration of the day with non-stop racing taking place and seven round-robin races were completed. “The wind gusted quite a bit around the course, which made sailing quite tricky but it is wonderful that we were able to sail so many races on one day. Everybody will obviously be quite tired tonight, but at least we had six races on the day and everyone had a chance to compete,” said South African Gordon McGillivray after the final race.
Tim Shuwalow and Cameron Hooper from Australia scored the first hit with a victory in the first race of the day. South African Blaine Dodds and his 19-year old daughter Roxanne finished second with the Guatemalan team of Juani Maegli and Cristina Guirola in third place. Germans Stefan Rumpf and Kim Liedtke and South Africans Shaun Ferry and Michele le Sueur were fourth and fifth respectively.
The round-robin races continued after a quick beach change-over and the rest of the fleet got back on the water for the fifth race of the semi-finals. Stefan Wiese-Dohse and Versi Gerhmann of Germany won the fifth race with SA champion Blaine and Roxanne Dodds second across the line and local sailors Andrew Ward and Steve Arnold in third place.
Competitors were delighted with the opportunity to race several races in one day after several days of frustrating sailing conditions and took to the water again after lunch to complete the sixth semi-final race. Aussies Shuwalow and Hooper repeated their earlier performance to win the race, followed by South Africans Shaun Ferry and Michele le Sueur and the French team of Jerome Le Gal and Siret Mickael.
Brazilians Juliano Viana and Sebastiao Gomes claimed victory in the seventh race with South Africans Hylton Hale and Kim Rowlands second, Shaun Ferry and Michele le Sueur third and Allan Lawrence and Nicola Francis fourth.
The Brazilians were coming into their own as Robert Bezerra and Sergio Nottingham won the eighth race followed closely by fellow countrymen Bernardo Arndt and Bruno Oliveira. The French team of Christophe Renaud de Malet and Alban Rossollin was third with the father-and-daughter combination of Blaine and Roxanne Dodds in fourth position.
The sailing conditions suited Brazilians Viana and Gomes, who went on to win the ninth race with South Africans Paul Lagesse and Tyran Kerford claiming second position and Sam Newton and Nick Tayler from Great Britain third across the line.
The tenth and final race of the semi-final rounds started shortly after 17h00. Newly appointed Chairman of the International Hobie Class Association Colin Whitehead won the last race convincingly. Whitehead, a former world champion, is sailing with his son Matthew, who at age 12 is the youngest competitor in the semi-final event. He is trying to repeat history as he won his world championship title sailing with his father Mick when he was 12.
