Olympic Games 1996

MISTRAL MEN - RACE 5 RACE REPORT - 25 July 1996

Prior to the start of today's racing, Alain Bolduc (CAN) said: "You must be on the lift at the start, it is such a short starting line that even if you are not at the favoured end of the line, you can gain a lot by getting on the favoured tack immediately."

Going into Race 5, Nikolaos Kaklamanakis (GRE), Aaron McIntosh (NZL) and Jorge Maciel (ESP) were tied in first place with eight points each. They were followed by Gal Fridman (ISR) with nine points and Jean-Max De Chavigny (FRA) in fifth place with thirteen points.

The Women's Board (Mistral) event started first today on race area Alpha, however, there was a shift in the wind direction and the course marks had to be moved, which caused a delay in the men's start sequence. Once the winds settled in, the Race Committee started the race. After crossing the starting line, the majority of the fleet went to the right of the course.

The first leg of the course is crucial, as the boardsailors that round the first windward mark in the top five will benefit from clearer air than the rest of the fleet and can easily take off on the reach or the downwind leg. The first sailors to the windward mark were Dale (LAT), Kaklamanakis (GRE), Rodrigues (POR), Espinola (ARG), Maciel (ESP) and Gebhardt (USA).

Sailing downwind, the boardsailors fought to get the leeward mark first. At the gate, McIntosh (NZL) ranked sixth in the World and De Chavigny (FRA) were deep in the fleet and in an effort to find clean air, went to the left side. After mark two, most of the fleet went to the starboard tack layline.

During the race, the wind shifted from 12-15 knots to 20-22 knots from the east and became very gusty due to approaching thunderstorms. The unofficial top ten finishers for Race 5 were GRE, POR, ARG, TPE, USA, LAT, ESP, POL, AUS, FIJ and ISR.

Rodrigues (POR) who finished second in the race today, said "I started near the (Race Committee) boat and went left to the layline. Usually, it does not work going to the left, but I had to risk it because I had a couple of bad results. When coming back on port to the windward mark, I was sometimes first and sometimes 20th because of the wind shifts. I rounded the windward mark in third behind GRE and LAT. On the reach, I passed LAT and from then on, the race was easy. I just covered the fleet."

Race 6 for the Mistral class was abandoned today because of heavy thunderstorms on the race course. Racing will resume tomorrow.