Nick Dempsey and Bryony Shaw have just returned from the RS:X World Championships in Buzios, Brazil. It was a great week with a mix of all conditions from very light, to both marginal and full planing conditions.
Nick was crowned RS:X World Champion for the second time after a great show of all round racing. He is the only men's sailor in RS:X history to achieve this remarkable feat. Trailing Olympic Gold medallist Dorian Van Rijsselberge (NED) by 6 points going into the last day of fleet racing, Nick sailed two superb light wind races to covert the defecit into a 9 point lead with just the medal race to go. Dorian did all he could by winning the medal race but Nick was on his heels finishing 2nd and taking the championship by 7 points.
Bryony found it hard to challenge Lee Korsiz (ISR) who was on sparking form to secure her third world championship in a row. But Bryony was definitely the best of the rest and, like Nick, sailed a superb medal race. She fully deserved her Silver medal. This is an incredible result following her illness last year and shows that she is now fully recovered and back to her true ability.
Robert Lamb was the RS:X Class Race Director at the event. He said, "These results reflect great performance across the full range of conditions and, to top it off, I have never seen so many place changes in two medal races before - it was very exciting to watch. So the two GBR sailors had a very challenging week and came out on top."
"From the race management perspective, there were many other challenges posed by the local organisers that had to be overcome. But, as the previous Class Secretary Rory Ramsden would have said, we managed to pull it out of the bag!"
