After a postponement waiting for the wind to settle, racing got underway at the Finn Europeans, Cesme, Turkey, in 12-14 knots of breeze. The race got away on the first start with four boats over the line early, those who went out to the right picked up a big lift, which set the pattern for the race. First was RYA team GBR sailor Andrew Simpson followed by Pascal Rambeau of France and Rafael Trujillo Villar of Spain. Fellow team GBR sailor Ben Ainslie finished in fourth place in front of Jonas Hoegh Christensen of Denmark and Stefan De Vries of Holland.

Race seven started in similar conditions favouring the right-hand side. Emilios Papathanassiou of Greece was sailing low and fast to the right trying to be first to the lift. Local sailor Enver Adakan led around the last mark followed by Andrew Simpson. Simpson made a tactical error and lost contact with the front-runners, leaving Papathanassiou to take the race win, followed by Swedish sailor Kristian Aderman and Luca Devoti of Italy who has become the new overall leader. Ben Ainslie finished in fifth place in front of French sailor Florian Chtounder.

It was a good race for Chris Brittle, who scored an eighth place in the last race to put him in 13th place and top Junior. Team mate Charlie Cumbley is one point ahead in 12th place.

This was a good result for Ainslie after the trauma of his disqualification the previous day for a measurement infringement on his centreboard. The boat and equipment weighed in fine at the beginning of the championship, but when Ben was pulled out for a random measurement check, it materialised that it did not measure and he was disqualified from the final race on Tuesday. He was not alone, world number one Mateusz Kusznierewicz was also disqualified for breach of measurement procedure; he was so appalled that he left the championship early.

Ainslie commented, “I had a good day today, and was especially pleased with my performance in the second race as I came from a long way behind to finish fifth. I am disappointed that I got disqualified, the points are really close between the top few boats and a disqualification could hold me back.”

One race is scheduled today (Friday) with the championships concluding on Saturday.

Results (after day three)

1st Luca Devoti, ITA (6,2,4,2,(13),9,4) 27 pts

2nd Ben Ainslie, GBR (4,8,1,9,(DSQ),4,5) 31 pts

3rd Rafael Trujillio Villar, ESP (2,6,6,6,10,3,(19)) 33 pts

RYA Team GBR

9th Andrew Simpson (5,12,(BFD),7,19,1,9) 53 pts

12th Charlie Cumbley (17,15,17,10,(18),(21),12) 89 pts

13th Chris Brittle (19, (DSQ),27,15,7,14,8) 90 pts