AGGBR 761 “Jerboa” helmed by Gavia Wilkinson-Cox, crewed by Mark Hart & Philip Catmur.

Gavia Wilkinson Cox sent a clear message to all the 76 competitive International Dragon teams today, by winning the first race of the 2016 “Hamlet” Gold Cup in style and so taking the Borge Borresen Memorial Trophy… 🙂

AG5Congratulations all round as “Team Jerboa” cross the finish line to win Gold Cup Race 1.

Tactician Mark Hart told me ” We made a good start but did not go too far right on the first beat as we played the shifts. When we realised the amount of current against us at the top mark we thought we were sailing in Cowes! So we knew to over-stand and allow a sensible margin.  Although we rounded the top mark in 2nd place we took the lead by the first downwind gate and then held our 1st place until the end”. Very well done to team “Jerboa”….

In 2nd place and also top Corinthian Team was 3 times former Gold Cup winner…. Jorgen Schonherr helming his latest “African Queen” DEN 411 crewed by Christian Videbaek and Thomas Schmidt.

AG3Top Corinthians and a brilliant 2nd place in Race 1 is the “African Queen” DEN 411…

Jorgen and his team are well used to the strong current that can flow between the waters of Sweden and Denmark, so were in their element today as many other top teams struggled with the difficult conditions….

Another Danish team to have a great performance today was DEN 32 “Nina” helmed by Nikolai Holm, crewed by Mathias Thomsen and Jonas Hogh (who is fresh back from the Rio Olympics). This young team were first to the top mark so were always up in the leading group, congratulations to team “Nina”.

14159906_1229723687067558_147294392_n (2)DEN 32 “Nina” cross the finish line to take 3rd place in Race 1 of the “Hamlet” Gold Cup…

It was a difficult day, but the IOR Christian Lerche did an excellent job to move the course around as the wind went from 115 degrees, to 140 degrees and beyond at times.. But as the saying goes “It was the same for everyone”.

Tomorrow will see much stronger wind with a forecast up to and in excess of 25 kts, so the start time has been moved forward to 10am to allow the opportunity of hopefully completing race 2 of the programme before conditions become too extreme……

Watch this space for the results and more superb action photo’s form Ricardo Pinto…

Higher, Faster, Longer………….    Stavros.

Full Results….Sailwave results R1 for Hamlet Dragon Gold Cup 2016 at HBK, HS and KDY 2016