With 7 wins out of 8 matches Recently crowned European Champions, Team Wibroe, easily lead the event in one of the strongest fields one could imagine.

A fine example of the superb sailing today was the duel between Wibroe and Ian Williams of Team Pindar. In an exhibition of world class match racing Williams and Wibroe were at each others’ throats from the moment they entered the pre-start area.

Williams engineered a penalty on to Wibroe during the pre-start duelling and they were evenly matched all the way to the top mark. William tried to drive Wibroe further off the top mark in search of another penalty, he gave up and tacked for the mark, whilst Wibroe took the opportunity to gybe round and shed the penalty before rounding the mark. A move that cost him practically no time at all.

Wibroe then found a band of pressure on the far side of the course and sailed past Williams on the down-wind leg. They continued this aggressive sailing until the final down-wind leg by which time Wibroe had clearly got the better of Williams and took the win.

In another demonstration of Team Wibroe’s growing confidence was their pre-start duel with Staffan Lindberg (FIN) of Alandia Sailing Team. The decisive moment came when both boats went head to wind at the pin end of the start line. Lindberg was at the pin-end side, the gun went and they both sat waiting. Wibroe dropped the fore-sail and finally Lindberg was forced to bear away, Wibroe followed and managed to squeeze over the line leaving Lindberg to gybe round to make the start.

After that there was no way back for Lindberg and Team Wibroe took another scalp.

But the results may not do justice to the fantastic quality of match racing that the traditionally very knowledgeable crowd at the Danish Open have been treated to. Sten Mohr, recently back to the Tour from America’s cup duty with BMW Oracle Racing (along with 5 other crews from the Americas Cup, which underlines Team Wibroe’s outstanding performance) gave a master class of his own.

In flight 11, Mohr loaded his opponent Mathieu Richard up with two penalties which soon turned into a black flag when Richard failed to start taking one of the penalties as soon as he could.

Richard’s point is a good one, apart from Team Wibroe (and unfortunately Team Viltoft with no wins on the board) all the other teams seem to be evenly matched; tomorrows matches are really going to be worth watching as the crews fight for a semi final berth.

Racing is planned to resume at 09:15 tomorrow, instead of the scheduled 10:00, in order to make up for lost time due to the conditions encountered so far.

Results

Flight 6 : Mathieu Richard def. Philippe Presti - Peter Wibroe def. Rasmus Viltoft - Staffan Lindberg def. Paolo Cian

Flight 7 : Mathieu Richard def. Rasmus Viltoft - Philippe Presti def. Staffan Lindberg - Peter Wibroe def. Paolo Cian

Flight 8 : Peter Wibroe def. Mathieu Richard - Staffan Lindberg def. Rasmus Viltoft - Philippe Presti def. Paolo Cian

Flight 9 : Paolo Cian def. Rasmus Viltoft - Peter Wibroe def. Philippe Presti -Staffan Lindberg def. Mathieu Richard

Flight 10 : Philippe Presti def. Rasmus Viltoft - Mathieu Richard def. Paolo Cian - Peter Wibroe def. Staffan Lindberg

Flight 11 : Sten Mohr def. Mathieu Richard - Jesper Radich def. Peter Wibroe - Ian Williams def. Philippe Presti

Flight 12 : Peter Wibroe def. Ian Williams - Philippe Presti def. Sten Mohr - Mathieu Richard def. Jesper Radich

Flight 13 : Peter Wibroe def. Sten Mohr- Ian Williams def. Mathieu Richard - Jesper Radich def. Philippe Presti

Flight 14 : Jesper Bank def. Rasmus Viltoft - Sebastian Col def. Paolo Cian - Björn Hansen def. Staffan Lindberg

Flight 15 : Jesper Bank def. Staffan Lindberg - Paolo Cian def. Björn Hansen - Sebastian Col def. Rasmus Viltoft