Darren Choy leads in the Byte CIIs on first day of racing in sailing championships

Contributed by Darrelle Eng

East Coast, Wednesday, June 3, 2009 – A passing morning storm lapsed into a decent southerly breeze by ten in the morning and racing got underway on time.

On Alpha course, the Byte CIIs opened the regatta with Youth Olympic Squad sailor Nathan Tang taking an early lead in the first race. Closely following were his teammate Darren Choy, female YOG contenders Airiel Ho and Koh Ling Ying, and national sailors Joel Yin and Germaine Teo.

Germaine, with a cumulative score of 17 points and now second overall, looks to be a strong favourite for one of the four open Byte World Championship slots.

The rest of the day saw Darren showing remarkable consistency, emerging winner of the day. Germaine and Nathan are both hot on his heels with a margin of only four points separating the top three boats.

Meanwhile the Malaysian Laser sailors had a good day. While Colin Cheng came round mark one looking strong in the first race, an unfortunate second work dropped him to fourth. Mohd Romzi and Harrithammry Nasution took advantage to climb up and are currently standing first and second on the scoreboard.

While Radial sailor Victoria Chan struggled a little with a sixth in the first race, three bullets in the following races helped to cement her place at the top of the leaderboard by the end of the day.

Natthawut Paenyaen of Thailand and Khairulnizam of Malaysia will likely be locked in battle going into tomorrow's waiting, with only a point separating the respective second- and third-placed sailors.

The duo of Justin Liu and Sherman Cheng are looking right on track to defend their national 420 title after starting off with a clear win in the first race. Two more bullets and two seconds throughout the day consolidated their position at the top of the scoreboards with a three point lead over their Youth Worlds counterparts Griselda Khng and Cecilia Low.

Benjamas Poonpat and Narisara Yu-sawat of Thailand are sitting comfortably in third at 18 points, while fourth and fifth places will be a contest between the third Singaporean pair of Ko Chuan Yang and Andrew Paul Chan and Thailand's Navee Thamsoontorn and Atiwat Chomtongdee, both of whom are tied on 25 points.

On Bravo course, Matthew Wearn of Australia opened his regatta well with a win in the first race, followed by a fourth, two seconds, and ending the day with another first. This gave him a five-point lead over second-placed Jordan Ng.

Third for the day was Ernest Tan, who will probably have to fight off Jerrold Ng, who is trailing by only two points.

Among the invitation Byte CIIs, Thailand is in the lead with Supakon Pongwichean and Jittiwa Thanawitwilat on seven and eleven points respectively. Malaysia's Muhamad Amirul follows closely on seventeen points.

The scoreboards are still set for change today. Radial leader Victoria Chan appears the safest of all the fleet leaders. While her teammate Elizabeth Yin may be looking to catch up, Victoria's ten-point lead as well as the former's early rule 42 infringement in race 2 makes this unlikely.

Laser Colin Cheng's OCS in the third race of the day has knocked him temporarily out of the top five, but with discards coming up soon, positions could change rapidly. Similarly a poor showing in one race by Muhammad Audi in the Byte CIIs could be dropped to push him up.