Sailing trio book spot in world semi-finals (From Dorset Echo)

Sailing trio book spot in world semi-finals

8:49am Thursday 15th December 2011 in News By Echo Reporter

AFTER 12 days of hard-fought competition, Poole’s Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor booked their berth in the semi-finals of the women’s match racing event at the Perth World Championships.

The defending world title-holders defeated the Dutch trio of Mandy Mulder, Merel Witteveen and Anne-miek Bekkering 3-1 in the quarter-final to earn their place in the final four.

The Skandia Team GBR crew battled through to Wednesday’s quarter-finals the hard way.

Having fallen the wrong side of a three-way tie-breaker in their round-robin preliminary group, they then had to race an additional 15 matches, winning 13 of them, to just make it into the knockout quarter-finals.

After a long delay, waiting for wind to arrive inside Fremantle’s Inner Harbour course, event officials eventually opted to race the Elliot 6m boats outside of the harbour where the conditions were better.

Once under starters’ orders, Macgregor, Lush and Macgregor were quick on the offensive, winning the first two matches of the first-to-three series. They conceded the third but then wrapped up the tie 3-1 to secure their place in the final four.

“We’re feeling good and are excited to finally be in the semi-finals and hopefully be one step closer to that title,” said an elated Lush, who admitted they were frustrated to have lost the third match to the Dutch crew.”

In the 49er class, a solid day for John Pink and Rick Peacock, the 2010 world silver medallists, sees them on top the leaderboard heading into gold fleet racing.

They scored one and six for their two races to sit four points ahead of the second-placed French crew of Stephane Christidis and Emmanuel Dyen, while Dave Evans and Ed Powys are in fourth overall, just one point from third, with a ninth and a race win to show for their efforts.

Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign bounced back from a difficult first race, in which they finished 16th after re-crossing the startline thinking they had jumped the gun, to post a third in their second race of the day. They are in 16th overall.

Weymouth’s Paul Goodison re-mains in second place in the Laser fleet with his sights trained on narrowing the gap on the Australian series leader and three-time world champion Tom Slingsby, while Nick Thompson drops to eighth overall but just five points off of the podium spots.

Skandia Team GBR’s top two 470 women’s crews remain in the hunt after a shifty day on their racetrack which caught out a number of the key players.

Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes are in fifth overall, with Wey-mouth’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark just two points behind in seventh, while in the RS:X men’s windsurfing event, Nick Dempsey has still to catch a break.

The Weymouth sailor is in 20th overall with just one race possible for the fleet in the shifty conditions, while development squad sailor Elliot Carney continues to hold his own with a sixth on the racecourse seeing him in ninth place overall.

* For the latest news and information from the Skandia Team GBR British sailing team at the Perth Worlds visit skandiateamgbr.com or follow the action on Twitter @SkandiaTeamGBR