Swiss pair Yves Mermod and Maja Siegenthaler sit top of the leaderboard after day one of the 470 World Championship in Japan, their finishes of 6th, 2nd and 1st giving them a one-point buffer over French duo Manon Pennaneac'h and Pierre Williot.
Third overall are Israeli juniors Roy Levy and Ariel Gay, silver medallists at the Junior Worlds in Gdynia. Mermod has no doubts about the standard on show. "I think the level we are having here at the Worlds is the highest we can have. Probably it's even higher than the Olympics," he said.
Racing ran to three fleet races for both Yellow and Blue under cloudy skies with occasional rain, 8-12 knots filling in just enough to keep things honest.
France made its presence felt early. Matise Pacaud and Lucie de Gennes took a convincing win in Yellow Fleet race one, with Pennaneac'h and Williot close behind in second. Over in the Blue Fleet, British pair Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris won race one, with Lomane Valade and Julien Bunel, bronze medallists at the Junior Worlds in Gdynia, finishing third after leading off the first upwind mark.
Race two in the Yellow Fleet went to Thailand's Navee Thamsoontorn and Nichapa Waiwai, who led from start to finish, moving Pennaneac'h and Williot into the overall lead when they placed second again. The Blue Fleet result put Mermod and Siegenthaler second behind Germany's Theresa Löffler and Christopher Hoerr.
The final race settled it.
Mermod and Siegenthaler held off local crew Tetsuya Isozaki and Yurie Seki to take the Blue Fleet win and the championship lead. Siegenthaler described a day that demanded patience. "It was an interesting day today. We had dropping winds, so we started with 12 knots in the first race, and it went down a little bit each race. The shifts got a little crazy at the end, but we managed pretty well, and we're happy," she said.
Yellow Fleet race three went to Japanese sailors Motomi Urabe and Musashi Tabata, who sit fifth overall. Their debut at this level clearly meant something. "This is our first World Championship, but we were confident that we could compete with the world's best. I think it was a really good start," said Urabe.
Tabata's sights are already on tomorrow. "I hope we can keep this momentum going so that we can qualify for the Gold Fleet. That is our goal for tomorrow's qualification series. I think we will have good wind tomorrow, so I hope we can keep communicating well and have another strong day. Arigato gozaimasu!," he said.
One point separates the top two. The rest of the field will have something to say about that.
