Kendall wins race to take over-all lead

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 21

Kendall wins race to take over-all lead

PA Pusan New Zealand sailors won two classes in the third round of Olympic racing yesterday but showed mixed form in the others. The board sailor, Bruce Kendall, was at his brilliant best to win his race and take the over-all lead from the American, Mike Gebhardt. And the defending Olympic Tornado champions, Rex Sellers and Chris Timms, survived a mid-race glitch to win theirs by two minutes and jump from fifth over all to second behind the ace French duo, Jean-Yves Le Deroff and Nicholas Henard. On the downside, the Flying Dutchman crew, Murray Jones and Greg Knowles, had an unhappy day, going the wrong way on their first leg and finishing ninth. They slip back a place but stay a very strong second over all behind their arch rivals, Jorgen BojsenMoller and Christian Gromborg, of Denmark. Showing promise for the first time, the Finn sailor, John Cutler, improved throughout his race to finish fifth and move up to sixth over all after three races. In the 4705, Fiona Galloway and Jan Shearer took some knocks in the shifting winds and finished eleventh, slipping two places to eleventh over all. And their male counterparts, Peter Evans and Simon Mander, slowed by a start-line mishap, recovered from near the back of the 29-strong fleet to finish eleventh. They drop two places to sixth over all but could Improve if a protest goes their way. The Soling crew, Tom Dodson, Aran Hansen and Simon Daubney, had a bad first leg to round the

top mark in fourteenth place. They picked off opposition boats through the race after that to finish eighth and stay fifth over all, now sharing the spot with the Danes. But the day belonged to Kendall and the Tornado crew. Aucklander Kendall got out of the start well, flicking his board hard right to pick up a strong current and better wind. He rounded the top mark second just astern of the Argentinian Velazco Garcia. The Kiwi passed Garcia on the third beat and then traded places with him until the last leg when he used better windward speed to clinch the race. But it was a near thing, with the four-times world champion, Robert Nagy, of France, improving to chase Kendall across the line. Nagy had picked up a good lift from the left side of the course in the same spot where Kendall had run out of wind the day before. The brilliant Frenchman showed his mettle for the first time in the seven-race regatta after finishing fifteenth and fourteenth in two earlier races. Kendall said Nagy was still one of the favourites for a gold medal. “So I’m glad I managed to just peg him back and keep him second.”

The 24-year-old fulltime board sailor now has a substantial points cushion, but he is not resting comfortably. “There’s a long way to go,” he said. “You’re never safe until the day after the last race and all the protests are cleared.” The Tornado veterans, Sellers and Timms, came off the course smiling after their big win. They had worried about

boatspeed for weeks, then squandered good leads through handling errors. This time there were no mistakes. But the second-placed Frenchmen looked very fast sailing through from ninth at the end of the first beat. They lead over all with a first and two thirds against the Kiwis’ 10, 3, and 1 results. Timms said the Tornado’s new rig setting worked well in the 14knot breeze and the Kiwis had showed they could go fast. “We’re still fighting,” he said. “We’re still in there.” The Flying Dutchman crew fell foul of Suyong Bay’s tricky currents. Knowing the water was flowing in opposite directions on either side of the course, they wanted to take the strongly favoured right side.

But the Kiwis were trapped in the middle of the course starting too far down the line. Unable to go left as other boats came through on starboard tack, Jones and Knowles slipped back to tenth round the top mark and could not get back into the race.

“It was just one of those days,” Knowles said. “We knew which side we wanted to go, but we couldn’t get there. We should have started at the weather end (of the line).” Contestants can drop their worst result in the final analysis. After a second and a first, the Kiwis hope the third race will prove to be their worst. The over-all leader, Denmark, looks very strong after finishing first, fourth and second. “It would have been nice to keep the momentum going,” Knowles said.