The Dart 18 catamaran world championships were held over the week of 21st -26th August at the newly built Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Acadamy, the porpose built venue to host the sailing at the 2012 Olympic games.
With eight different nations competing it was a very international event with teams travelling from as far as South Africa.
The racing was to take place in Weymouth Bay as the fleet of 132 boats was deemed too big to sail in the more sheltered Portland harbour, race 1 got underway in strong winds building to 34 knots which led to quite a lot of damage including Bridlington salior Matt Exon snapping his mast. After 2 laps the race was shortened and then abandoned after a number of boats had finished including Joe Franks who was left frustrated as he was pushing a top ten finish.
Tuesdays racing was cancelled due to too much wind, which put pressure on the race committee as 2 days had passed with no results.
Wednesday dawned with lighter winds but due to build over the day, 3 races were sailed but there was a lot of damage in race 3 with many boats retiring,
Matt Exon had a great result in race 3 finishing in 5th place.
Thursday saw heavy winds once again with the Bridlington boats enjoying the near survival conditions with Matt and Joe always inside the top 20, Duncan Baines also having a good day at the office pulling many places back in the overall standings, Ken Porter and Chris Maw having a real battle in every race.
Friday also saw 3 races in a dying breeze with 9 races sailed the results were as follows
Matt Exon 13th
Joe Franks 21st
Chris Maw 54th
Duncan Baines 74th
Ken Porter 76th
| Last Modified: 30-Aug-2010 |