18th September 2003 - Day One

Racing began today with the fleet of 176 boats from 62 countries being split into four groups. The wind for the twelfth consecutive day was blowing from the north east and racing began on time in 18 - 20 knots with gusts of up to 25 knots recorded during the first set of races.
In the yellow fleet races Ed Wright of England won the first race, but could only manage a 7th in the second heat, which was won by Michael Blackburn of Australia, who had sailed to a 5th place finish in the first race. Michael said after the race that racing, although fair, was a great test of ability due to the constant shifts in breeze directions and strength. Low point scorer for the day from this fleet was Ali Kemal Tufekci from Turkey who sailed consistently, scoring a 2nd and a 3rd.
Blue fleet racing today included defending World Champion Robert Scheidt of Brazil who, when leading the first race on the second beat, missed a shift from the right and dropped back to 4th, which was his finishing position. In the second race Robert rounded the top mark in 3rd, he then worked his way to the lead on the square run and from there was never headed and had a comfortable win of over 30 seconds to New Zealand's Robbie McMillan. After the race Robert said: “the winds were very shifty and that meant you had to do lots of tacking with the shifts, up to 10 times for a beat”.
In the first red fleet race Gustav Carlsson of Sweden had a close race, winning by a small margin, with 2nd to 5th then crossing the line within 5 seconds of each other. In the second race Gustav said he missed a shift and dropped a lot of boats and could only recover to finish 9th . The second race was won by fellow Swedish sailor, Karl Suneson.
The overall leader came from the green fleet. Gustavo Lima from Portugal had a perfect day to score two first places to put him 3 points ahead of Scheidt and Ali Kemal Tufekci from Turkey. Both on equal points. Lima, the runner up two years ago, has been training at the regatta site for the last two weeks. He said: “I sailed the Spanish nationals in different winds and did not expect to get two first places on the first day. I am very happy.”
The fleet is reassigned to new groups for tomorrow’s racing. This process will continue for two more days then the fleet will have a day off before sailing 5 more races in gold, silver, bronze and emerald groups.

Overall results after 2 races:
1.Gustavo Lima POR 2pts
2.Robert Scheidt BRA 5pts
2.Ali Kemal Tukekci TUR 5pts
4.Michael Blackburn AUS 6pts
4.Daniel Birgmark SWE 6pts
4.Karl Suneson SWE 6pts
4.Mark Mendelblatt USA 6pts
4. Vasilij Zbogar SLO 6pts

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