J.P. Morgan Asset Managment FinN Festival 2012. Falmouth

Scott off to good start at UK Finn Nationals

After the first two races at the JP Morgan Asset Management Open UK Finn Nationals, the warm up regatta to next week's Finn Gold Cup, current world champion Giles Scott has got off to a good start with a small margin over main rival Ben Ainslie, each winning one race each. Ivan Klakovic Gaspic (CRO) sits in third on equal points with Ainslie.

The day demanded concentration, good fortune and thermals. It was a cold day on Falmouth Bay on the opening day of the Falmouth Finn Festival and the tricky waves and even trickier winds. But at least it didn't rain. It started with a solid easterly breeze and sizeable waves, but the forecast was for it to drop and it started to do that as soon as the sailors reached the course area and completed the job by the end of the second race.

By the time of the start of race one at 13.00 the wind was down to 10-12 knots with a large sea running. Oscar was flying and this stayed up for the first downwind but then was removed and stayed down for the rest of the day. Eduard Skornyakov (RUS) made the best of the first upwind to lead round the top mark. But close behind him was Giles Scott (GBR) and it wasn't long before Scott was in the lead to take the first race of the championship. Rafael Trujillo (ESP) crossed in second with Andrew Mills (GBR) in third.

After some delay, race two was started a a very sloppy and patchy 4-6 knots. Again the leaders emerged from the left side with Jonathan Lobert (FRA) leading Pieter-Jan Postma (NED) and Ben Ainslie (GBR) around the top mark. The wind started to go really light on the downwind, and on the second upwind after half the fleet had rounded the gate the wind all but disappeared for 20 minutes with bands and patches appearing randomly over the course. Ainslie hung onto his lead to cross ahead of Scott and Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic (CRO). Meanwhile the second half of the fleet had some major place changes as the decision to go left or right was not easy. Defending Champion Allen Burrell (GBR) opted for the right, and gained around 30 places to cross in 25th.

Three races are scheduled for Sunday, with an earlier start time of 11.00 and a kinder forecast of 8-9 knots and slightly warmer.

Results after 2 races
1 GBR 41 Giles Scott 3
2 GBR 3 Ben Ainslie 8
3 CRO 524 Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic 8
4 NZL 1 Dan Slater 18
5 NED 842 Pieter-Jan Postma 18
6 CZE 1 Michael Maier 21
7 UKR 1 Oleksiy Borysov 23
8 AUS 261 Oliver Tweddell 25
9 CRO 11 Josio Olujic 26
10 FRA 112 Jonathan Lobert 27

Full results http://www.falmouthfinnfestival.com/nationals-results/C2