Hyderabad: The biggest sailing extravaganza began with a bang, with a wind speed varying from 15-20 knots and gusting up to 25 knots. The first day of the Hyderabad Sailing Week got the sailors riding the crests of waves at the Hussainsagar lake.
In the morning session M. Koteshwar Rao of Telangana Sailing Club (TSC) stood first in Race One. Ram Milan Yadav of National Sailing School (NSS) and Vivin Vinil of Indian Naval Waterman Ship Training Centre, Mumbai (INWTC, M) were the winnners thereafter in second and third races.
The morning session also saw Laser Standard and Laser 4.7 sailing in course-1 and Hobie-16 and RS:X in course-2. In Race One of RS:X Ibad Ali of AYN (Army Yachting Node) was leading the way closely followed by Jerome Kumar of AYN, but a slight mistake got him penalised. Jerome was able to read the wind shift well and managed to overtake Ibad.
In Laser Standard Vir Menon of Royal Madras Yacht Club (RMYC) did well and got the gun in first race of the day, an under 21 age category boy took everybody with surprise, national sailors were also catching their breath to cope with him.
In RS:X Jerome Kumar of AYN have taken lead in all three races. Kaushal Kumar and Girish M. the duo from Artillery Water Sports Association (AWSA) after securing second position in first race pulled their socks up and got the gun in the second and third races. They are leading the Hobie-16 class.
In Laser Standard Vir Menon of RMYC won the first race, Muzahid Khan and Mohit Saini of AYN took the second and third races respectively. In Youth class laser 4.7.
The evening session was a delight to watch with the ‘Finn’ Class sailing for the first time in the national sailing event. Naveen of AYN was leading the tally as he won the first and third races but Swatantra Singh of AYN managed to steal the second race from him.
The Laser Radial saw the biggest fleet of the tournament with 58 boats sailing. It was Harpreet Singh’s day as he won all three races. Satish and Rahul of AYN performed well and won the first and second races on Enterprise Class. They were closely followed by the duo of Ashish Patel and Nagen Behra of EME Sailing Association (EMESA) who took the third race.
Ayaz Shaikh and Shubham Patel stole the show in 470 Class as they stood first in all three races.
