Shwetha off to fine start

Chennai, May 6 (UNI) Shwetha Sadanand of Tamil Nadu Sailing Association (TNSA) got off to a flying start and built up a huge lead to finish first in the first day of the Chennai Port Trust National Optimist Coastal Sailing Championships which began here today.

Arisuddan who trailed Shwetha for most of the race briefly caught up with her at the second windward mark rounding but after that Shwetha just sped away to finish the race first.Praveen Dhanasekaran of the TNSA who had sailed a steady race finished third.

Rufus Patrick who seemed to be doing well found his mast step breaking up and his mast falling down thereby ensuring that he could not participate in the other two races of the day.

In the second race the wind picked up and the swells became higher. With a strong tide pushing the fleet, the race course was shortened. The high swells and the chop made downwind sailing a difficult proposition for all these under 15-year-olds.

However, majority of the fleet was up there with only a few capsizes and it was only the team from Bhopal, who train in a lake, found the going difficult and some of them even suffered from sea sickness. However, these sailors persevered.

The second race was similar to the first except there was a reversal of positions with Shwetha coming behind Arisuddan and Sarav bringing up third position.

With the third race immediately following the second, the course was changed slightly so that it could be aligned to the wind. Gaurav Pikale of CSC came first followed by Nishanth Chandrashekar of the TNSA who came second and Gerad Ambrose of TNSA in the third.

UNI