The final battle between the world’s best Hobie Cat® sailors was fought out on Dapeng Bay in China yesterday, in the final two races of the 21st Hobie® 16 World Championships.
Going in to the day’s racing Daniel Bjornholt Christensen (DEN) had an 8 point buffer and was holding onto an amazing 5 point drop, which meant that Mick Butler (AUS) needed a minimum of two races, and luck to go his way in both, to have a chance to move ahead of the Dane.
After an ominous start to the day with very light winds, optimism was still in the mind of all of the competitors. Even Bjornholt Christensen wanted to race if conditions were fair. Despite the chance that he could lose the crown that was looking like his for the keeping. Early in the morning not long after arriving at the event site he said.
“I’m happy to race if the conditions are proper. But right now it would be a chance game so I would prefer not to go out because I’m the one who could lose the most. But if the wind swings around and we get even any sort of a steady breeze, I’m happy to go out there and race”.
His crew 24 year old Josephine Frederiksen who has sailed with Bjornholt Christensen in two European championships was trying to remain as relaxed as possible while waiting to see if the Race Officer would call for the world championship teams to leave the beach.
“I’m just trying to take every minute as it comes, I’m trying not to think about it and staying as calm as I can be. If racing happens we’ll just have to go out there and do our best”.
At 10:30 am the call came out that the bay had filled in with enough breeze for a start and with more wind coming in behind it. The race to the top of the world was on once again.
Read the rest of the story at the Hobie 16 World Championship website.
