Despite choppy conditions, it’s smooth sailing for G4S 4teen’s Juan Maegli this week
8 June 2011
G4S 4teen sailor Juan Maegli had a terrific day of sailing yesterday (7 June) at the Sail for Gold Regatta at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy. The young Guatemalan sailor, who started the day off in ninth place overall, worked his way up the rankings with each of his races to finish the day in fifth place in the Laser class.
Juan, who spent some time last summer training with Paul Goodison and the rest of the Skandia Team GBR Laser squad on the Olympic waters, found himself ending the day ahead of the Olympic Champion, who is currently in eighth place. Hopefully his training on the Olympic waters will pay off further as he continues the competition this week.
The G4S 49ers also improved on their scores from yesterday, with Stevie Morrison-Ben Rhodes hitting back after their black flag disqualification with yesterday to come in with two first places finishes and one fourth place in their three races. They finished the day ranked sixth overall, remarkably improving on their 25th place ranking at the end of sailing on Monday.
Stevie said: “Despite the pressure of our ‘whoopsey’ [Monday], we did a good job of staying chilled. We got a real grasp on what the wind was doing and had the boat set up well, so we were pretty fast. We’ve still got that big one hanging over us, but we have just got to keep sailing solid and stay as calm as circumstances allow.”
The other G4S 49er boat, sailed by Peter Greenhalgh and Chris Draper, also fared well, coming in eighth overall after two days of the event.
Chris said: “All in all we have had a pretty solid start to the regatta and done well not to pick up any bad scores so far. We’re really excited about the rest of the week. The forecast looks great, and Bingo, our boat, is carrying us along at a great rate.”
With the 2012 sailing venue throwing up conditions of 18-22 knots and big waves out in Weymouth Bay by early afternoon, it was a physical day on the water for all concerned, but other British sailors also managed to make gains in the stronger breezes of Tuesday’s second day.
It was an especially good day for the British girls at this sixth leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series, with Laser Radial sailor Alison Young seeing the best scores on the water for Skandia Team GBR with two race wins and a second, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark advancing into pole position in the 470 women’s fleet, and Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor booking their berth in the quarter-finals of the women’s match racing event.
Ben Ainslie still leads the overall Finn standings, but is tied on points with the second-placed Croatian Ivan Kjlakovic Gaspic. Giles Scott is just outside of the medal standings in fourth, behind New Zealand’s Dan Slater, while the Skandia Team GBR Finn squad is making its presence known in the top ten with Mark Andrews in sixth, Andrew Mills in seventh and Ed Wright in ninth at the close of play on Tuesday.
Racing at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta continues until Saturday 11th June. For up-to-date results please check www.g4ssports.com , follow G4S Sport on facebook or on Twitter (@G4S_Sport).