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Markus takes charge in Medemblik…..
Markus Wieser crewed by Georgii Leonchuk and Sergey Pugachev helming UAE 7 (Petticrows) recorded another win yesterday to maintain a 100% record so far in the 86 boat Dragon Gold Cup, sponsored by BMW.
As the current holder of this wonderful “Golden” Trophy, which Markus won last year in Douarnenez, he is most determined not to let it go ! Although it is still early days, (with 4 more races to go), it is going to take a very strong team to beat him.
Yesterday’s race started surprisingly under a Black Flag, I say surprisingly as normally the fleet is allowed at least one start without penalty. However, due to the many recalls and time wasting on the previous day, the Black Flag came out of the PRO’s box. Then in the final minutes of the countdown, a right hand shift may have caused a number of boats to jump across the line. No one wants to see their boat number on the dreaded blackboard on such occasions, but sometimes a deterrent such as this must be used and the consequences of a premature start must be taken on the chin.
However, the start was allowed to continue and most of the leaders decided to tack as soon as possible to the right. I personally thought the wind would eventually go back to the left as it had been oscillating all morning, However, this only happened very briefly before another right hand shift saw the boats that had taken the early decision to go right, simply miles ahead.
The two boats who are currently closest to Markus are SWE 358 helmed by Hans Liljeblad (9th & 2nd) and Jens Christensen 6th & 5th (pictured above), who are both sailing superbly well to stay in touch at the top of the leader board. Meanwhile in the “Corinthian” division (Non Professional Sailors), it is GER 1151 helmed by Philip Dohse who heads the table, closely followed by Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen. Strangely enough, Poul Richard is ahead of Philip in the main overall standings in 4th place, but such is the format of the Corinthian scoring (whereby all the Professional boats are taken out, then the teams awarded 1, 2, 3, 4 etc), that Philip is ahead……
Moving on to today, we have 2 races planned to hopefully catch up the race missed on Sunday. So it will be a very long day for all especially after the excellent party that the sponsors organised last evening. It was a first class meal and gave an opportunity for the sailors to meet and thank the people who make it possible to help run a fantastic event such as this…….
(Once again I thank RICARDO PINTO for these superb photograph’s).
Higher, Faster, Longer…………. Stavros. (GER 1102).