After a day of races at the SAP 505 World Championship somehow Mike Holt and Rob Woelfel have managed to cling on to a slender 2-point lead in Kiel, Germany.
In the first, medium-airs race it was the up and coming Aussies, Pete Nicholas and Luke Payne, who once again demonstrated an uncanny knack of sniffing out the tricky breeze and ploughed a lonely furrow out on the left-hand side of the track.
“We're going fast in the 12-18 knot wind range, and we backed ourselves to find something good on the left,” said Payne. The Australians, professional sailors who compete on the Alpari World Match Racing Tour, did indeed hook into some good breeze to round the first mark in the lead. Even with the five-time World Champion Wolfgang Hunger and Julien Kleiner in hot pursuit, the Australians held their nerve and their lead to the finish, with the Germans in 2nd place.
The final race is scheduled to start at 12pm on Friday, with a live broadcast of all the action.
— Andy Rice, www.sailingintelligence.com
Top five after 6 races: 1. Mike Holt / Rob Woelfel, USA, 19 points 2. Andy Smith / Tim Needham, GBR, 21 3. Peter Nicholas / Luke Payne, AUS, 24 4. Dr. Wolfgang Hunger / Julien Kleiner, GER, 26 5. Ian Pinnell / David Shelton, GBR, 28
