David Carter off to a good start in the sailing Sailing in eastern harbour in Mariehamn

JERSEY sailor David Carter has got off to a promising start in the Laser radial rig class where he was in third overall overnight.

The 51-year-old States Property Holdings employee finished fourth in both yesterday’s races to sit fourth points behind the overall leader.

Carter, who is in the class along with Jersey newcomer David Putt, had had to adjust to tough conditions as the temperature was around 25 degrees. Light winds and huge wind shifts were make conditions difficult for the whole fleet.

While Carter got to grips with conditions Putt was caught out by the wind in race two and he was forced to retire.

Jeff and Martin Speller had their first two races in the Standard rig laser yesterday and with each team sharing a boat it is a tight turnaround between races as they have to be re rigged for each class.

Jeff jumped the start in race one so he did not score while Martin recovered from a poor start to move up the field and place seventh in race one and then 14th in race two for 14th overall.

Jeff’s 16th position has left him in 16th place overall and he will be hoping for an improvement in this morning’s races.

Sailing manager Simon Le Huray said: ‘Conditions are killing us; dehydration is a problem that we certainly had not anticipated. It’s early days with only two of the races gone and David [Carter] is certainly in the hunt with the start he has had.’