Wicklow sailors Shane McCarthy and Andrew Davis lead the GP14 Worlds in Barbados with two races to go but still any one of three can win the world title later today.
Lighter winds prevailed for Race seven and eight but unfortunately that meant a lot more holes and huge shifts in the air.
Race 7 got under way on time but big shifts caused a bad bend and the gate was restarted. All clean away with Shane & Taxi battling for the lead which they eventually took giving us another new race winner!
Second place was Graham Flynn & Adam Froggatt of Chase with a superb 3rd thrown in by Andrew Clewer & Mark Taylor of Poole YC. Dobson took 9th with Nick Craig seeing his not so best result of 11th.
Race 8 was started under very shifty conditions. So much so that the pathfinder Paul Owen & Sam Pickering of South Staffs were sent on the most massive header that the lined up fleet had to all go in reverse dramatically downwind to try to get behind the guard boat. Loads of boats were left floundering above the gate which then caused serious problems for those who had just about made it. The later gate starters (2mins+ gate left open for 3mins 30secs) were sunk. All sailed on up to the windward mark with many sailors flying red protest flags to protest the committee. A few rounded the windward mark and popped up their spinnakers when eventually (20mins later) the committee boat came up through the fleet and signalled for a restart!! Bit late considering the fleet had sailed the first full beat!
All took a bit of a while to get reassembled back down to the start line and we eventually got going again. Matt Burges & Paul Childs took the second win of the event followed by Shane & Andy, with Iain Dobson and Andy Tunicliffe in 3rd.
Top Ten after 7 races
1st Shane McCarthy Andy Davies 3 3 (9) 3 2 4 1 (25) 16
2nd Nick Craig Tobytastic Lewis5 2 3 2 6 1 (11) (30) 19
3rd Ian Dobson Andy Tunnicliffe2 1 6 (106 DNF) 1 5 9 (130) 24
4th Mike Senior Chris White 7 4 5 1 4 3 (12) (36) 24
5th Matt Burge Paul Childs 1 5 8 11 7 2 (29) (63) 34
6th Sam Watson Andy Thompson 4 15 (25) 4 3 15 4 (70) 45
7th Richard Instone Jim Toothill 12 18 1 (42) 8 7 5 (93) 51
8th Graham Flynn Adam Froggatt 13 (30) 14 20 9 6 2 (94) 64
9th Neil Marsden Derek Hill 17 13 2 (33) 5 10 23 (103) 70
10th Gary Deighan Dale Knowles (28) 12 7 9 16 18 8 (98) 70
After 8 races, results are here