What a day. Everyone arrived at the spot to find wind gusting 40 knots blasting across the site, hard enough standing up straight, never mind sailing. A one hour delay was called to give the wind time to calm down a little.

At 2.00pm the Race Committee sent out the Youth and Junior Boys, for some full-on racing in extreme planing conditions, fast and exciting, [more]2 races for the Juniors, 3 for the Youths. Later on the Girls were sent out for 2 races for both fleets, with the wind still peaking at 20 knots but starting to drop off. A huge contrast with yesterday’s calm, and some very tired-looking sailors will be sleeping well tonight after their efforts.
In Junior Girls, Israel’s Mika Kafri has maintained a comfortable lead over her pursuers, Poland’s Aleksandra Wasiewicz now lying second ahead of Kafri’s team-mate Amit Segev. In Junior Boys, no single rider has really been able to impose themselves, so it’s still quite tight between the top 3, with Poland’s Konrad Machura re-taking top spot from Italy’s Alessandro Melis and Britain’s Boris Shaw still holding on to third. 
But it’s even tighter in Youth Girls, with the two leaders on equal points, and the next three on equal points, separated only by better discarded races. It’s still France’s Manon Pianazza and Israel’s Sharon Kantor slugging it out ahead of the chasing trio, Israelis Daniela Peleg and Naama Greenberg, and Russia’s Youth Olympic medalist Yana Reznikova. In Youth Boys, the Youth Olympic medalist Alexandros Kalpoginnakis made his local knowledge and class tell, claiming a clean-sweep by winning all 3 races to hold a good overnight lead ahead of Israel’s Daniel Tashtash and Roi Hillel.
With 2 days of racing to come we’re coming to the crunch and in just 48 hours we’ll know the names of the 2018 Dole European Techno 293 champions. Stay tuned!