We continued to be blessed with favourable wind conditions; racing on both courses got off to a good start once again this morning. On Course Bravo, four races were held, bringing us to race 9 of the series completed. Both discards have now kicked in for the Byte standard and invitational CII classes, but the top sailors of both fleets are still holding their own.

Supakon Pongwichean of Thailand extended his lead on the invitational CII fleet with an another impressive string of bullets today. He is now nine points ahead of his teammate Jittiwa Thanawiwilat and with only three races to go and both discards still available, we may be looking at the regatta champion already!

In the Byte fleet, Australia’s Matthew Wearn continues to hang on to his top position, but Jordan Ng is creeping up, closing the gap between first and second to three points.

Over on Alpha course, Victoria Chan and Darren Choy are both hanging on to their top placings by the skin of their teeth. The second Laser Radial sailor, Khairulnizam of Malaysia, is two points from Victoria, and Youth Olympic Squad member Terence Choo has discarded his 13th placing from yesterday to emerge second, only three points from Darren.

The racing will be more intense in the Laser standard fleet, where a mere two points separate the four top boats: Mohd Romzi, Nik Ashraf Qaedi and Harrithammry Nastution, all from Malaysia, and Colin Cheng, who can finally discard his disqualification for starting prematurely yesterday and move up the rankings. It looks like the battle for regatta honours will continue to be tough for these four close competitors!

Meanwhile Justin Liu and Sherman Cheng have slipped to second behind Griselda Khng and Cecilia Low. Their positions are now reversed, with the latter gaining a two-point lead over the former. Ten points behind in third position, Navee Thamsoontorn and Atiwat Chomtongdee have also overtaken former number three Benjamas Poonpat and Narisawa Yu-sawat.

Nine races done, the pressure will be off the race management team to get in races over the final two days. We can probably expect a plan for two races tomorrow and one on the last day.

While the results for the Byte CII invitational class may be practically sealed, the close point scores with three races to go for the remaining fleets offer no security to the leaders. One thing’s for sure: wind permitting, we’ll be seeing some fierce racing tomorrow!

Results: Laser & Laser Radial | 420, Byte & Byte CII

Click here to view photos of racing.