Japan Secures 1 2 3 on the Leaderboard at the 470 Spring Cup

Two races were completed on Saturday's day 3 of the 2011 470 Spring Cup with light winds. After a few hours of waiting ashore, the sailors finally hit the water around midday when the breeze started to fill in the bay of Les Sablettes near Toulon, France. Split into two groups, the first group started after a general recall and the second group followed right after them. The course seemed to favour the left side at first, but in the middle of the upwind leg the wind shifted and those who originally lost out by going right suddenly found themselves ahead at the windward mark. The first boat was the GBR sailors Sparks and Mason, followed by the Japanese and the Dutch boats.

The top placed women's team going into day 3 of racing were New Zealand's Joe Aleh and Bianca Babarich-Bacher. They managed to score another race win in today's race 4, and were able to discard their not so hot result of a nineteenth in race 5. They are now in fifth overall, but have lost their top women's place to the Japanese team of Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata who sailed an impeccable scoreline of a 2,1 to shift up into third overall. Their move up into third has delivered Japan a 1, 2, 3 on the leaderboard – an impressive outcome.

The two Japanese men's teams of Ryunosuke Harada and Yugo Yoshida, and Tetsuya Matsunaga and Kimihiko Imamura had gained top three positions after day 1 of racing, which were converted to the gold and silver positions on day 2. Day 3 sees them extend their lead further and whilst the points margin is not so great over the other teams in the top 10 their consistency is far better.

Top 10 Boats Overall

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Top Image: Tetsuya Matsunaga and Kimihiko Imamura (JPN). Story Image: Race 4 start © Icarus.