What a day in Sopot! 12 knots greeted competitors, it was warm and sunny and another brilliant race day with three bullets for Max! 2 back to back course races followed, after a break ashore, by one marathon race was scheduled and the plan worked perfectly.[more]
Fabian Grundman (GER-933) gave Max a good run for his money in the first race of the day, staying pretty close to the Champion until Max streaked away to finish in customary first position over the line. However, second is Fabian’s best result of the championship so far. Pedro Corte Moura (POR-73) also put in his best performance finishing in third place.
In race 8 it was Patrick Pollak’s turn to challenge Max in a tightly packed race but his rounding of the last mark was not up to the standard of our champion who once again cleared the finish line in fine form, leaving Patrick to take second place with Jan Maszkiewicz POL-108 in third.
It was a very close finish for the Long Distance race with any of the top five in contention but, yet again, Max nailed it ahead of Piotr Nowacki who pulled out all the stops to finish second and Jan Maszkiewicz was third.
So the men’s leaderboard shows an unstoppable Maksymilian Wojcik (POL-7) in first place with 8 points. Second placed Piotr Nowacki lost ground after the two course races but regained form in the marathon and has 30 points. Consistent races have brought another Pole, Jan Maszkiewicz, up into 3rd overall. However only 1 point separates the 3rd, 4th and 5th placed men, all fighting for the 3rd podium spot.
Leading in the age divisions: youth, Markus Bouhier (Germany); master, Patrik Pollak (Slovakia); grandmaster, Juha Blinnikka (Finland) and veteran, Kai Mannisto (Finland)
Over in the women’s division 3 different sailors took a race win. Maria Jopyk-Misiak (POL-48) took her first championship win in race 7. Aleksandra Blinnikka discarded that race but was back on fine form to take the bullet in race 8. Still leading the fleet is Ilona Grinberga (Latvia), winner of the ladies marathon race.
