Open Qualifiers Flags Are Up
Last night sailors attended an excellent presentation dinner for the Great Grand Masters, Grand Masters, Women’s and Youth divisions in the 21st Hobie® 16 World Championships in the ballroom of the Manwan Harmona Resort.
The Youth and Women’s classes were the first world championships to be won at this year’s regatta. New Caledonians Auxence Thomas and Noa Ancian are the 2016 Hobie Cat® Youth World Champions and were very excited when they were presented with their world title trophy in front of an appreciative audience.
All smiles and draped in the Australian flag as they walked onto the stage world championship winners in the Women’s division Krystal Weir and Georgia Warren-Myers from Australia were presented with their award to loud applause.
The Great Grand Masters International Cup trophy was presented to Grahame Southwick and Sharon Rayner from Fiji and Rod and Kerry Waterhouse from Australia were also presented with the Hobie International Cup for the Grand Masters class.
Today the Open Qualifiers will race for the first time in their series. They are competing to win a place in the semi finals and race against the pre qualified teams for a chance to win the open world championship. With limited places available this should be a highly competitive few days on the water.
The wind is predicted to be light at 4 to 8 knots coming in from the south, There is a 25% chance of morning rain which could get heavy at times and the cloud cover is expected to remain throughout the day. The temperature will climb to a high of 310C (810F). We have big tides happening with a high at 10:53 of 2.46m and a low of 0.17m at 16:48.