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Testing conditions on practice day at the St Petersburg Extreme Sailing Series Regatta had crews battling massive wind shifts and a 4-knot current across the River Neva course.
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Neither the fickle breeze nor the current at St Petersburg got in the way of the Emirates Team New Zealand crew’s twin missions for the day: get to understand more about the course and work on crew combinations.
Ray Davies is substituting for Glenn Ashby who is racing in the European A Class Championships this week. Davies and Peter Burling have never raced together before and it takes a while to get to know each other’s style.
Burling was not overly concerned by the conditions. “Massive shifts seem to be a feature of Extreme Sailing Series regattas. It can be frustrating but it certainly keeps them interesting – right down to the last race.
“We seemed to get on top of the current pretty quickly and just had to deal with the shifts as they appeared without warning from off the land.
“We were happy enough with our day on the water but it was practice – not racing.”
“Once again in the ESS consistency will be the key. It will be difficult to be consistent – but that’s what we are working towards.”
The first of four race days is tomorrow (NZ time). The regatta concludes overnight Sunday. Forecast conditions of the first day of racing have breeze at five to 10 knots with a 4-knot current. There is bound to be plenty of drama…or драма as they say in Russia.
To get to the race course in the heart of historic St Petersburg, the Extreme 40 fleet made a midnight transit from the port up the Neva river to the event site.
