Very exciting first day here in Busan for the third edition of the Busan Cup Women’s Match Race. The wind blew all day between 16 and 20 knots, but there were HUGE holes in the breeze and the winds on the race course were VERY shifty!

Very challenging conditions for the competitors and race management team alike! Principal Race Officer Peter ’Luigi’ Reggio (USA) and his team including WIMRA Asia Representative, Junko Takano (JPN) worked hard and ran 10 flights of races for the 12 teams.

For those of you who followed the first two editions of this event, there have been some changes this year: After two edition racing with gennakers, the boats have been switched to spinnakers and the switch has been perfect. (One observer noted: "I don’t believe today there was any chance to fly a gennaker except to check how was the shape of keel.") The second change is a new sailing area very close to the city and not so far from the Bridge. A sailing village have been built for the occasion, where the sail boats are moored, so just a five minute sail to the race course. And finally, this year there will no longer be a fishing net contest as there are just four or five single nets in the race area instead of the filed of nets in the previous events. The changes are very welcome by the competitors!

More round robin racing tomorrow.

Provisional Result:

Claire Leroy (FRA) 5 Wins - 0 Losses
Sally Barkow (USA) 4 - 1
Lucy Macgregor (GBR) 4 - 1
Camilla Ulrikkeholm (DEN) 4 - 1
Stephanie Hazard (NZL) 3 - 2
Katie Spithill (AUS) 3 - 2
Cristiana Monina (ITA) 3 - 2
Ekatarina Kutovaya (RUS) 2 - 3
Ru Wang (CHN) 1 - 4
Urara Fuji (JPN) 1 - 4
Camilla Marino (ITA) 0 - 5
Hawen Lim (KOR) 0 - 5

View the Results Table from Day One here: http://www.wimra.org/documents/2010Busan-Day1-Race_result.pdf

For complete results and photos, please visit the event website: http://www.busanmatch.com

Follow the action in real time - http://twitter.com/busanmatch