A truly gorgeous day in Hayling Bay with 8-10kts from close to due South. Snakes & Ladders for some. Opportunities for others. Playing it best were the Allens (GBR) and Stocchero & Virgenti (ITA). They have identical scores save for the Italians having the better discard and the better result in R6 and therfore it is they who will have the Yellow jersey going into the final 2 qualifying races tomorrow whilst the Allens will be dressed in Blue. The Red jersey goes to Whitfield and Taylor who will have worn all three jerseys in the 3 days so far.

Jenny Smallwood and Jamie Webb were almost as good with the breeze up by a couple of knots from day 1. With a 3,1,1 they are now up to 10th and giving it a very decent run. Chambet & Tissot from France who led after the first day had a bit of a mare but are still 15th. Gelpi and Serra from Spain are right on their heels in 16. Keeping the international theme going – it is after all the worlds! – Dutilh and van Lookeren (NED) have quietly eased into 19th, with Estonians Tavo Annus and Mikael Ristmets 20th and Swedes Frida Winzell and Sofia Lundgren 21st. The Dutch team have really impressed since early this year with huge improvements month on month.

Biggest mover of the day may be Hugo Tucker and Guus Dutilh in one of the many international combinations out playing. Guus was the poor kid who needed to sit on the beach and empty his nausea resulting in three DNC’s. After a fair day today they shot up a whopping 60 places. Another odd little factoid is that the boat in 14th still counts nothing but single digit scores. Figure it, five races counting and you score all single figures but are still 14th? It is going to take the start of the final series to start creating space in the scores. Final oddity, I’d have put fair money on Rob Masterman and Marcus Payne getting a big result if the weather had been as per last week. A fair rocket ship they are when the breeze is up. Instead theybknownthatbfor any result they need to blast off the start line. So they just have to push it. Final race of the day saw a rash of recalls and black flags and yes you can guess how that ended for Rob and Marcus.

So tomorrow is last day of qualifying. Races 7 & 8. There will be 1 discard and then equal splits to form Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets. The early finish will give time for the nations cup and then we get the beach BBQ. Truly amazing for our collective meteorological memories!