Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris lead the Gold Fleet after day one of Gold Fleet racing, the British pair having won both opening races in conditions that tested patience as much as skill.
The day began awkwardly. Sailors launched early, around 8:30am, only to face a single light-wind race in a fading nor'easterly before the Race Committee sent everyone ashore under AP over H. A two-hour wait followed. The kind of wait that loosens nerves in some sailors and tightens them in others.
"I think it was a day of two halves," Wrigley said. "We had one quite light-wind race, with the wind more from the northeast." China's Wenju Dong and Hailun Xiao led initially before the lead changed on the second lap. Wrigley and Harris came through to take the win, with Greece's Afrodite Zegers-de Kleine and George Kavvas second and Portugal's Diogo Costa and Carolina João third.
When the breeze filled in, the second race got underway under the Oscar flag. A general recall followed, with several teams receiving BFDs. It didn't slow the British pair. They rounded the first upwind mark in front and never looked back, with Portugal's Beatriz Gago and Rodolfo Pires finishing second to continue good form from earlier in the day.
"We haven't done such a good job earlier in the regatta," Wrigley acknowledged, "so I think we've taken quite a lot of learnings from the mistakes we've been making. The second race had a bit more breeze. It was good to work hard and have good speed."
Then race three. France's Lomane Valade and Julien Bunel took it, with Costa and João second and Japan's Tetsuya Isozaki and Yurie Seki third. That result lifted the Japanese pair to second overall behind Wrigley and Harris, with Spain's Jordi Xammar and Marta Cardona third.
By then conditions had turned seriously difficult. Only 16 teams finished race three as the fleet split into two groups.
Gago had set consistency as the day's goal, but the final race wasn't kind. "Unfortunately, the last race was super tricky. We did 12, but we managed to finish the race and a lot of boats didn't." She was matter-of-fact about it: "It was a really difficult day, but we managed to hold on and have fun. We did our best." She also noted that Pires had been unwell earlier in the week. "Now he's recovered, so it's good that we are showing the work that we have been doing during the year."
For Wrigley and Harris, the mood was bullish. "We kind of knew that coming into the last two days, it was just going to be quite chaotic, and we just had to fight hard, because it was basically the start of the regatta again," Wrigley said. "The points were always going to be so close. I think we just wanted to attack the day and see how we finished up."
They did exactly that.
