25 Dragons return to Torbole’ for the final Grade 1 event of the 2017 season on Lake Garda.
It was inevitable that numbers would be reduced for the 13th Hans-Detmar Wagner Cup this year despite the added attraction of the IDA making it a Grade 1 event. Although over 90 Dragons are about to participate in the 2017 Gold Cup in St Tropez in 12 days time, 25 top teams have still made the trip to Lake Garda which shows the tremendous “strength” of our International One Design Class.
With a light to medium (3-12kt) Ora Wind blowing from the South race 1 got underway around 3pm this afternoon (Oct 4th). First to the windward mark was GBR 758 Klaus Diederichs helming a new V6 Petticrows, followed by GER 1168 Ingo Ehrlicher and GER 1177 Pedro Andrade in 3rd place.
GBR 758 helmed by Klaus Diederichs, crewed by Jamie Lea & Diego Negri lead at mark 1.
By the end of the second upwind leg, GER 1177 Pedro Andrade had taken the lead and was able to maintain his winning position on the final run with GER 1162 Stephan Link moving up to 2nd and GBR 758 Klaus Diederichs dropping to 3rd.
European Champion Pedro Andrade wins race 1. Stephan Link 2nd, Klaus Diederichs 3rd.
A second race got underway shortly after in a dying breeze… At the top mark it was SWE 342 Bjorn Osterblom who rounded first, with RUS 76 Dmitry Samokhin in 2nd and GER 1140 Nicola Friesen 3rd. Although the second upwind leg proved extremely tricky with a big shift to the right, it was RUS 76 who just pulled through to win the race. This gave Dmitry, Andrey Kirilyuk & Alexsey Bushuev a deserved victory, from RUS 34 Vasily Senatorov in 2nd and GER 1140 Nicola Friesen hanging on to finish 3rd.
Overall “Provisional” results after 2 races. GBR 758 Klaus Diederichs leads.
Tomorrow will see two more races, with a civilised start time of 13.00, which will hopefully allow the afternoon Ora wind to fill in…
Higher, Faster, Longer…………….. Stavros.
P.S. Many thanks to Tim Tavinor for these action photo’s and the regular updates 🙂