Australian Sailing Team member Mara Stransky had a day she would rather forget on the first day of Gold Fleet racing at the Laser Women’s Radial World Championships at Sandringham Yacht Club.

Stransky finished her three Gold Fleet races in 20th overall, leaving herself with work to do going into the final day of racing tomorrow.

“It was pretty volatile out there today with wind differences and big differences in pressure. The shifts were big and long so if you were on the wrong side of one you were in all sorts of trouble. Unfortunately I found myself in that position quite a lot,” she said.

The big shifts wreaked havoc on the entire course, but young Aussie Zoe Thomson still managed to navigate them nicely in her first two races. She built on yesterday’s strong results posting a 17th, 7th and a drop (47th) from her three races today.

Those results left her as one of the best Aussie performers in Gold Fleet today. Thomson has moved up one place to now sit 26th overall.

Jacinta Ainsworth was the most impressive young Aussie in Silver Fleet today finishing with 3rd, 4th and 7th places.

“The conditions out there were a bit tricky today,” Ainsworth said. “But It was just a matter of getting a good start and playing the shift and kicking on from there.”

But it was the tussle between Brody Riley and Michael Compton for second and third in the men’s overall standings that has set up an exhilarating final day of racing tomorrow.

The duo went tit-for-tat across all three of their races but with strong 3rd and 7th place finishes from Riley to end the day, he now sits 4 points in front of Compton overall.

Riley and Compton will also have to fight off a fast finish from compatriot Stefan Elliott-Shircore to make sure he doesn’t knock one of them off the dias.

Tomorrow is the final day of racing at Sandringham Yacht Club, with a westerly predicted at 15 to 20 knots.

For more information on the 2020 ILCA Laser Radial Women's World Championship and full results visit: https://sailing.laserinternational.org/public/site/event-site/110

Day Five Results:
 
Laser Radial Women’s (105 entries)
 
Australian Sailing Team (AST), Australian Sailing Squad (ASS) entries:
 
20th: Mara Stransky (AST) 5, 22, 8, 5, 14, 5, (44), 20, 28 – 107 pts
38th: Elyse Ainsworth (ASS) 32, 11, 20, 8, 24, 15, (39), 22, 37 – 169 pts=

Other Australians in the Top 40:

26th: Zoe Thomson (AUS) 10, 14, 28, 14, 15, 19, 17, 7, (47) – 124 pts
 
Laser Radial Men’s (66 entries)
 
Australians in the Top Ten:
 
2nd: Brody Riley (18), 8, 5, 3, 3, 6, 3, 7 – 35 pts
3rd: Michael Compton 2, 3, (14), 5, 4, 4, 10, 11 – 39 pts 
4th: Stefan Elliott-Shircore 7, (30), 7, 7, 10, 1, 5, 6 – 43 pts 
8th: Zac Littlewood 25, 5, 1, (DSQ), 1, 22, 16, 1 – 71 pts
9th: Frazer Brew (RET), 11, 6, 6, 5, 27, 15, 9 – 79 pts 

Photos: Jon West Photography