Winds Pick up on Second Day of IFDS Sailing Worlds

After a slow start on day one, winds picked up to 14 knots with gusts past 20 knots on day two of the 2012 International Association for Disabled Sailing (IFDS) World Championships in Florida, USA.

The Netherlands’ three-time defending world champion, Theirry Schmitter, shook off a slow start in Tuesday’s races to vault to the top of the 2.4mR leaderboard on Wednesday, while Canada’s Paul Tingley struggled to repeat his day one results, dropping into third place.

Ireland’s John Twomey, Anthony Hegarty and Ian Costello were leading the Sonar class with Aleksander Wang-Hansen, Marie Solberg and Per Eugen Kristiansen of Norway on equal points. France’s Bruno Jourdren, Eric Flageul and Nicolas Vimont-Vicary were just a point behind in third.

In the SKUD class, also idle on Tuesday, Jennifer French and Jean-Paul Creignou of the United States and Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell of Great Britain battled for the top two spots all day. The Americans claimed a one-point lead by bookending the British second-race win. Hagar Zehavi and Shimon Ben Yakov of Israel took third with Scott Whitman and Julia Dorsett of the United States in fourth and Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch of Australia fifth after a disqualification in the first race cost them the third-place spot.

Eleven races are scheduled in total for each class. Racing is set to resume Thursday. Overall results in the SKUD class are provisional pending protest results.