Three Races, Three Winner’s….

The second day of the the 4th winter series in Cascais saw the sun finally appear and all 36 boats completing 3 races in lumpy sea’s with around 10 to 12 kts of wind. Club Navel de Cascais Race Manager, Bruno Santos  had no hesitation but to send the fleet out on time towards the “A” course this morning, which takes around 30mins depending on the wind strength. This “A” course is what has made Cascais famous and today was no exception and this very experienced International fleet, all enjoyed 3 good races.

With such a variety of talent, it was no surprise to see three different boats win, due to the strength in depth of the fleet and the quality of the superbly maintained boats. With a good start and correct sail trim most if not all of the 36 boats racing today are capable of success. However, the first team to take line honers was RUS 76 “Strange Little Girl” helmed by Dmitry Samohkin which moves him and his top crew Aleksey and Andrey into 3rd place overall. Making full use of the strong ebbing tide, Dmitry and his team played the left side of the first beat after startin at the PIN. In 2nd place was GBR 690 “Blue Movie” helmed by Dave Atkinson, crewed by John Outwaite and Ian Turnbull, who made their gain on the second beat. Then in 3rd place was SWE 386 “Still Crazy” helmed by Stefan Winberg, who is starting to put together some great results in his recent boat.

In race two, the PIN end again was still favoured, but mainly for the tide not the wind. This time it was the turn of RUS 27, with Anatoly Loginov back on the helm, taking the gun. One of Anatoly’s crew Vadim Satsenko told me “we started down the PIN end and played the left centre on the first beat, making sure we stayed in the strongest tide.” “We could see the boats on the right loing out as the tide had changed towards the shore”. 2nd in race two was GER 1120 “Blu” helmed by Michael Schmidt and 3rd was RUS 76.

RUS 27 Anatoly Loginov and his team win the 2nd race and move into 2nd overall.

Race three was won by RUS 98 “Murka” sailed by Vitally Ignatenko, who again came from the left hand side of the beat, catching the very last of the favourable tide. With Dmitry Bereskin calling the tactics, they managed to keep their lead throughout the race. In 2nd place was over night leader POR 55 Jose’ Matoso who was again sailing extremely consistently having already bagged a 6th and a 5th place in the previous races. This keeps Jose’ just ahead of Anatoly overall by 3pts. The final podium position of race three was taken by POR 63 “Seven Sea’s” helmed by Diogo Barros.

POR 55 “Drago” helmed by Club Naval President, Jose’ Matoso, still leads overall.

When the sailors returned to the Club Moorings and Marina, a launching ceremony organised by Petticrow Representitive Vicente’ Melo and his Wife Joanna, of the newly acquired POR 65 “Pamalican V” owned by the current Portuguese National Champion Francisco de Lacerda, took place. As you can see from the photo below, Vicente’ places the flags spelling the name onto POR 65. So we see yet another new Petticrow Dragon in Cascais. The more the merrier I say……

A BIG thank you to Richardo Pinto for all these excellent photos..  Check out his website www.rspinto.com

Higher, Faster, Longer………   Stavros.   GBR 767.