The sixth race of the International 14 world championship in Sydney started in 15-18 knots from the south for the start, and it gradually built to about 20 kts later in the afternoon.

The impressive team of Lindsay Irwin and Andrew Perry in AUS 631 had their third win in six races for an amazingly low total score of only 7 points. Irwin started the race going left, but tacked and crossed the middle to join the boats who had gone right. He came around the first mark in 4th, which he considered a good result for a conservative beat. “After that,” said Lindsay, “it was just a case of racing the boat, and the boat is pretty quick in that kind of breeze.”

One of the key moments of the race came at the start line. Race Officer Kevin Wilson could see it all happening. “They were all lined up for the start with 30 seconds to go, and no one had given any consideration to the tide, which was still flooding in,” said Wilson. As the boats powered down the line they ran out of space, and the tide pushed them over early.

Ten boats were ultimately called OCS, eight at the leeward end of the line. Five of those boats were in the top 15 in the standings at the end of yesterday; three are ex-world champions (Zach Berkowitz, Grant Geddes and Kris Bundy), and one was Ross’s own son, Andrew Wilson, crewing for Alan Vickery in AUS 633.

The day’s events left the top six placeholders as follows going in to the last day tomorrow: Irwin/Perry in AUS 631; Morrison/Rhodes in GBR 1513; Richardson/Barker in GBR 1516; Fawcett/Dobrijevic in GBR 1511; Devine/Jones in AUS 632; and local team Slater/Handley in NZL 43.