Jens Rathsack helm’s his MON 2 to victory in the 3rd race of the winter series in Cascais..
After the excitement of day one, the 23 boat fleet had to be patient on Saturday and wait 3 hours for the wind to eventually fill in around 2pm. The sea conditions were still seeing big rolling waves crash powerfully against the sandy beaches of Estoril which would send clouds of spray many metres into the sky.. This meant for tricky helming conditions and constant sail trimming in order to keep the dragon moving as they rose high onto the crest of a wave, before disappearing into a deep trough of “nothing”….
In race 2 of the series, which was started around 2.30 the wind had settled in from 210 degrees and was anything from 4kts to 10 kts depending how your boat sat on a wave.. The skill of steering up quickly to take full advantage of the “boost” given by the wave, soon had to compensated by an equally quick “bear-a-way” so as to not put the boat head to wind. All in all tricky to say the least.. One boat who again mastered these difficult conditions was last series winner Stefan Winberg SWE 385 “Still Crazy”, who won the race from GBR 786 “Clairvoyant” Martin Payne 2nd and RUS 76 “Strange Little Girl” Dmitry Samokhin 3rd.
Winners of race 2, SWE 385.
In race 3 of the series it was MON 2 Jens Rathsack (opening photo) who took advantage of an early gybe after rounding the top mark 5th. Jens told me “Although we rounded behind 4 boats we were the first to gybe and seemed to make our gain down the middle of the run”. Jens and his team of Julius Plass and Diogo Pereira held onto their lead after the first gate to win from POR 66 2nd and POR 56 3rd. All 23 boats then sailed back onto the swing moorings to be greeted in the club with superb food and drinks showing off the fantastic hospitality of the Club Naval de Cascais…..
So with the top 5 boats all in with a chance of winning the series everything depended on the final day. Unfortunately, despite nearly 5 hours on the water and one aborted race, the wind just did not materialise as forecast. This meant no discard could be implemented so the results stayed the same….
The winning team RUS 76 “Strange Little Girl” Dmitry Samokhin, Aleksey Bushuev & Andrey Kirilyuk, with Yacht Club Naval representatives at Prize Giving yesterday..
Overall Results Top 5.
1.RUS 76 “Strange Little Girl” Dmitry Samokhin, Aleksey Bushuev & Andrey Kirilyuk 1st, 3rd, 6th.
2. POR 66 “Drago” Jose’ Matoso, Gustavo Lima & Frederico Melo. 9th, 2nd, 4th.
3. GER 1123 “Pow Wow” Michael Zankel, Pedro Andrade & Philip Blinn. 2nd, 7th, 7th.
4. SWE 385 “Still Crazy” Stefan Winberg, Per Norgan & Frederick Brotell. 7th, 1st, 10th.
5. GBR 786 “Clairvoyant” Martin Payne, Donal Small & Antonio Matos. 3rd, 2nd, 15th.
So next weekend is the Ski Vole’ in Cannes/Antibes, then onto Monaco for the Primo Cup, then immediately back here for the 4th Cascais Winter Series. 🙂
Higher, Faster, Longer…… Stavros.