Match Racing in Cascais as the sun shines….

The 9 International Teams started to do “Battle” yesterday in the 2nd “Stavros” Match Race Championship. With just one team having to drop out (Tim Tavinor), who not only test’s his new Petticrow Dragons as they leave the Burnham Yard, but also decide to test his Head, as he fell off the deck on one of his boats landing from 3m onto the concrete below! Fortunately Tim survived the ordeal, but Doctors advised him not to travel. I’m also pleased to report that the hole in the concrete at the yard has been re-filled so all is well.

Back to the racing and with teams from Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Holland and the UK there were many aggressive pre-starts and close covering throughout each race. It was great to see Klaus Diederichs, with America’s Cup Helm Andy Beadsworth on board sail against Pieter Heerama, with former World Champion Theis Palm as tactician. After Klaus won the pre-start and held a comfortable lead, Pieter fought back to steal the win after a favourable wind shift. Then current Irish and UK National Champion Martin Byrne had his work cut out against last year’s runner up Martin Payne. An over keen Pedro Andrade on-board the Irish Champions boat saw them enter the pre-start two seconds early thus taking a penalty and giving Payne a advantage, whilst Byrne tried to come to terms with his error, Payne seized his opportunity and gave Byrne a 2nd penalty, which proved too much for Byrne to recover from.

Also it was good to see Patrick de Barros back in the Dragon, fighting hard against the best Portuguese teams Filipe Silva and last year’s winner Henrike Anjos. Also in action was Ireland’s George Kingston who had a tough time against Germany’s top Dragon sailor of all time Vincent Hoesch, who with his “Bavarian Dream Team” won two of his three races so far..  With all 9 teams racing against all the others in equally matched Petticrow Dragons, the round robin continues this morning, to see who will make it into the semi-finals on Monday…  The sun is already out and hopefully the hang-overs from the copious amounts of sponsored”Hendicks Gin” will not hinder the early (9.30am) starters this morning  🙂

Higher, Faster, Longer…..   Turning     Stavros.