The rest of the action was at the top mark, where the Dutch pulled a super high mode escape around the windward mark to hold off a chasing bunch, and held their way from there grabbing a sixth place finish. The Danes Nyborg and Olsen came charging around, but couldn’t pull off their bear away and did a nose over capsize, half pitchpole, half capsize that took them an age to right and they could only recover into a 19^th. The Germans, Stingele and Scheel, were mid pack the whole way around and ended up 10^th.

That shuffled the leaderboard so that the Irish and the Dutch were tied for the lead, with the Germans and Danes each about 10 points behind. The RC set up for the final race of the day, which could prove to be the final race of the regatta if the forecast holds.

At the final start, the dutch looked like they were poised to do a port tack option start, ducking the fleet behind on port to hit the right side. With 30 seconds to go they tacked back and took a regular start, easily winning the vacant pin end and heading offshore. Meanwhile, the Irish did start on port at the boat, but didn’t pull it off very well. Additionally, those that started on starboard and then tacked right ended up grabbing two little shifts, and that whole pack beat out the Irish. By the time the fleet got to the windward mark our two leaders were dragging up the back of the pack, each in the teens.

It was chaos at the top mark rounding, however, with four boats capsizing on the set. Both the Dutch and Irish progressed through the fleet, with the Dutch into fifth and the Irish into ninth by the second windward mark. Like in the first race, the Dutch tried to make a very tight layline into the final windward mark, but touched it, requiring them to do a 360.

The Irish made one pass on the downwind to finish in 7^th, while the Dutch limped through in 11^th place. As things sit the Irish take that 4 point advantage into the final day, and if the forecast holds it could mark their winning of the Junior World Title!