As forecast, Day 3 of the Laser Radial Youth World championship saw a slight drop in the average wind speeds and for a change new race winners in one of the two fleets.

The 18kt wind that dropped to 16 knots for the second race of the day was further to the south-east than has previously been seen. This gave flatter seas but more shifts coming off the land. Strong right hand shifts paid well for some but left others too exposed. One of these was joint overnight leader Frederico Melo from Portugal.

Halfway through the race he was back in fifth place behind race leader Adam Fox GBR and the Spanish pair of Jorge Garcia and Raphael Cabellero. Fox and Garcia had a great tacking duel up the last leg with Garcia just edging out fox at the finish by a few centimetres.

These two had opened up a big gap between Cabellero and Kyle Rogachenko USA who had an equally close fight for third and fourth place with Melo hanging on to fifth. Melo recalled: “I went to the left side first and the wind went right and then when I was on the right side the left side paid so I was negative all the time. A big group went to the right and then came to the first mark a long way in front.”

In the second race Melo was leading a close group for at the front when he was penalised by the jury on the downwind leg and had to take two turns which dropped him to third. Rogachenko took the winning gun ahead of Garcia with Melo holding third. Melo continued “in the second race I went with the shifts but others went to both lay lines and were ahead. Today was difficult. Tomorrow it will be better.” It was not difficult for New Zealander Blair Mclay who scored two more first places to keep a perfect score sheet. McLay led the first race from start to finish whilst in the second race he rounded the first mark third behind 16 year old Pierre Collura from Finland and Ivan Taritas CRO. He overtook Taritas on the first reach and then Collura on the following downwind. Collura was very happy with his second place to go with a fifth in the first race attributing his good results to “a good night’s sleep!”

Overall Results (after 6 races with discard)

1 Blair McLay, Male, NZL, 5, pts

2 Frederico Melo, Male, POR, 7, pts

3 Ivan Taritas, Male, CRO, 14, pts

4 Antonios Tzortzis, Male, GRE, 16, pts

5 Jorge Jover Garcia, Male, ESP, 18, pts

6 Daniel Jakobsson, Male, BRA, 18, pts

7 James Burman, Male, AUS, 21, pts

8 Pierre Angelo Collura, Male, FIN, 22, pts

9 Igor Lisovenko, Male, RUS, 26, pts

10 Kyle Rogachenko, Male, USA, 27, pts