After a six and a half-hour postponement at the Melges Europeans in Lake Garda sailing finally got underway at 1730 on 6 September, 2001. Keen to ensure the fleet got away rapidly the race committee introduced the black flag catching out both overnight leader Pouligny and fourth placed Favini. Pouligny is protesting his disqualification so final results hang on the outcome of this hearing.

With the early evening breeze shifting constantly there were significant place changes through out the race. Overall second place Laurent Pages got a lousy start and went the wrong way up the first beat coming out 24th at the top mark. Unfortunately his day did not improve and by the finish he had dropped right back into the low 40s.

Of the overnight leaders only Jamie Lea, Andrea Rachelli and Alba Batzill made the top ten in second, third and eighth respectively. Kristoffer Sopen took first place improving his overall result from 14th to 10th.

With the discard coming into play after six races the leader board remains fairly constant with Pouligny first overall ahead of Pages and Batzill. Favini’s OCS drops him down from fourth to sixth in a direct place swap with Rachelli. Lea continues to fill the gap between them in fifth place.

In a desperate bid to out-manoeuvre the unusual weather conditions being experienced in Torbole this week the race committee have announced that they plan to start racing at 0800 this morning.

Provisional Results (Subject to Protest)

1st FRA-383, CEDRIC POULIGNY (3,5,5,1,6,OCS)

37.4 2nd FRA-388, LAURENT PAGES (15,1,3,10,1,47) 42.7

3rd GER-507, ALBA BATZILL (2,21,2,5,8,8) 44

4th ITA-438, ANDREA RACCHELLI (19,3,18,9,4,3) 58.4

5th GBR-437, JAMIE LEA (14,9,15,4,7,2) 59

6th SUI-483, FLAVIO FAVINI (5,4,24,2,10,OCS) 67

7th ITA-490, SILVIO SANTONI (9,2,53,24,2,12) 69

8th ITA-139, MARIO ZILLIANI (10,8,1,15,DNF,7) 72

9th NOR-418, HERMAN HORN JOHANNESSEN (OCS,25,13,11,5,4) 85

10th NOR-249, KRISTOFFER SPONE (29,13,10,20,25,1) 92