2011 winner Henrique Anjos fights hard in the pre-start with Klaus Diederichs.
The weather could not have been better as the 10 teams completed the “Round Robin” at the 6th Stavros Match Race event in Cascais. In pole position with 8 wins out of 9 races is TUR 1212 “Provezza” helmed by Andy Beadsworth. This former America’s Cup sailor put his opposition under a lot of pressure during the 4 minutes of pre-start manoeuvres.
8 wins out of 9 for “Provezza” Ali Tezdiker, Simon Fry and Andy Beadsworth.
Also showing great form is 2011 Match Race winner Henrique Anjos a local sailor who now lives in Dubai so sailing under the UAE flag. Henrique and his team of Denis Charvoz and Charles Nankin also ended the day with 8 wins but had a 0.25 penalty awarded against them for “contact” during a pre-start incident.
Another great photo from Ricardo Pinto, during Day 2 of the Stavros Match Race.
Next on the ranking list with 7 wins from 9 races is RUS 76 “Strange Little Girl”, helmed by Dmitry Samokhin, crewed by Alexsey Bushuev and Andrey Kirilyuk. This team are no strangers to close boat to boat racing having demonstrated their skills in Venice last year by winning the 2K team race event.
RUS 76, Dmitry Samokhin about to enter pre-start from the Pin End of the short line.
Now that the Round Robin has been completed the boats will be seeded 1 to 10 with the bottom 4 teams entering into a “repechage” to determine the last two quarter-finalists. The event then proceeds into a straight “knock-out” competition with semi-finals and a final consisting of the best of three matches. So theoretically anyone of the 10 teams could still win! But if I was to put my mortgage on it, I would anticipate the 2017 winner will come from one of these top 4 teams 🙂
Pedro Andrade helming his new boat “Monday”, currently ranked in 4th position.
The event Prize Giving this evening takes place in the famous Fish Restaurant O’Pescador… I wonder which team will be the proud winners of the 2017 Stavros Match Race Dragon “Half Modal” Trophies superbly crafted at the Petticrows factory back in the UK….
Higher, Faster, Longer…………. Stavros.