470 Worlds – Hudson & Jim Steam Into 3rd Overall

Another light start to the day, with 2 knots the only breeze sniffing around the race track at the scheduled start time of 1400 hours. Postponements ashore saw teams relaxing around the venue and generally chilling in this very beautiful location at Club Nautico San Isidro.

Patience from the Race Committee and teams, as everyone waited for an opening in the weather, which eventually delivered around 1745 hours. Racing got underway in the late afternoon in an 8-9 knot easterly breeze, increasing to 10-11 knots, with pumping allowed.

And what a day for South Africa.

Although it’s still early days for the South African’s, Asenathi Jim and Roger Hudson, they made their mark with their best ever opener to a 470 Championship, having steamed up to the top three from a solid 3,16, 6 score line. However, with just three races down, the recently crowned 470 African Champions are understandably cautious.

“It feels nice to be up there with the top guys and playing their game,” smiled Jim.
“The three races have been fantastic and we just need to keep the momentum going and keep building on what we have. We seem to have great speed and are making good calls,” he added referring to their tactics around the track.

“Its early days, so we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” chipped in Hudson. “This is the first time in six years we have ever had a brand new boat and we spent ten days preparing it before the Worlds. We definitely have an extra shade of speed that we haven’t had before, which is extremely helpful at a venue like this.”

The race track was not as kind for some as the winners of the first two races were OCS.

Check out this leader board – with Asenathi Jim and Roger Hudson in a fine spot at third after three races.

Top 10 after 3 races
1. Paul Snow-Hansen/Daniel Willcox (NZL 2) – 2 pts
2. Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergström (SWE 349) – 6 pts
3. Asenathi Jim/Roger Hudson (RSA 1) – 9 pts
4. Onán Barreiros Rodríguez/Juan Curbelo Cabrera (ESP 9) – 9 pts
5. Gabrio Zandona/Andrea Trani (ITA 2) – 10 pts
6. Sime Fantela/Igor Marenic (CRO 83) – 11 pts
7. Sofian Bouvet/Jérémie Mion (FRA 27) – 12 pts
8. Panagiotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis (GRE 1) – 15 pts
9. Geison Mendes/Gustavo Canal Thiesen (BRA 1) – 17 pts
10. Pierre Leboucher/Vincent Garos (FRA 44) – 21 pts