Nenad Bugarin wins light wind race on fifth day at Finn Junior Worlds
Nenad Bugarin (CRO) won the only one race sailed on the penultimate day at the 2015 Finn Junior World Championship for the Silver Cup in Valencia. He narrows the gap to the overall leader, Ondrej Teply (CZE), to just two points. A ninth for Arkadiy Kistanov (RUS) was enough to move up to third for the first time this week.
As well as the lightest day of the week so far it was also the hottest with temperatures up to 36 degrees. The sailors were held onshore and afloat but finally got one race off in around 6-7 knots of breeze, which weakened by the finish.
Bugarin explained his race, „I had a fine start and soon after I was in a good situation to control the left side and my opponents. On the first mark I had a nice advantage and kept the situation under control until the finish.“
Overall leader Teply crossed in second place. He said, „Today was quite light winds, but I managed to be fifth at the top mark and passed a few boats on the downwind to finish second. It’s a good result for me especially in the tricky conditions like we had today. Generally I am happy how the regatta has gone. I am leading, and anyway it’s going to be a very close finish.“
Stig Steinfurth (DEN) has been third for most of the week. Today that went wrong with a 20th place in the light winds, a result he had to count as he had a DSQ from earlier in the week. That dropped him to sixth, and leaves a sizable gap on the leaders.
He said, „For me it was a really bad race, which gave me 20 points extra, which was not what I needed. There were not many chances of a comeback. It has been a nice week, but I am a bit disappointed of the strength of the seabreeze here in Valencia. On the only day with more than 10 knots it was the gradient wind that build to a nice breeze.â€
Third place in the race went to Hector Simpson (GBR) in his first season in the Finn, while fourth went to Max Kohlhoff (GER) in his last season as a junior.
Kohlhoff said, „I’m really happy about my performance today. It was a tricky race. Today some guys sailed some high points and I’m happy to be consistent so far.â€
„My expectation for the week was to finish somewhere in the top ten. It’s my last junior event ever so I just wanted to have some fun. To finish in the top five would be great but of course I know that the points are really tight in the top and everything can happen. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.“
There is just one day left at the Silver Cup and everything still to play for. With six boats in the top 10 already picking up a letter score, the battle is far from over. Mathematically six boats can still take the victory, or take a podium place. It will all come down to who wants it the most.
Results after nine races (one discard)
1 CZE 5 Ondrej Teply 29
2 CRO 52 Nenad Bugarin 31
3 RUS 6 Arkadiy Kistanov 48
4 NOR 9 Lars Johan Brodtkorb 49
5 GER 25 Max Kohlhoff 54
6 DEN 31 Stig Steinfurth 55
7 GER 259 Phillip Kasüske 59
8 ARG 48 Facundo Olezza 60
9 DEN 24 Andre Hojen Christiansen 72
10 GBR 96 Hector Simpson 72
Photo: Robert Deaves
More photos: www.flickr.com/finnclassphotos
