SB20 Portuguese National Championship at Clube Naval de Cascais - Day 1
by Jane Austin 21 Jun 2019 03:56 PDT
20-23 June 2019
Day 1 - SB20 Portuguese National Championship under spinnaker © Anna Zykova
Reigning SB20 Portuguese National Champions (Dom Pedro Hotels/Generali), helmed by José Paulo Ramada with Fausto Briosa Neves, António Pereira and Miguel Leal Faria, has firmly thrown down the challenge to the 2019 SB20 Portuguese Nationals fleet with a clean sweep (1,1,1) on Day One of the four-day regatta.
Sailed from Clube Naval Cascais in Portugal, the first day of sailing got under way in sunny conditions with PRO Sebastiao Castro setting an inshore course for the fleet in 15-18 knots of N/NW breeze.
Australian crew and 2018 runner-up Porco Rosso (Elliott Noye, Paul McCartney and Ed Snowball), had a reasonable start to Race One but missed the first line of pressure on the final run, dropping a few spots to end up in 7th place.
Porco Rosso had a difficult start to Race Two after being bounced off the line, said coach Sam Brearey, but they worked hard to get back into the race, finishing 8th. The final race of the day presented a few problems for the Aussie crew, heading to the top mark in 20th position, but again, they worked hard to regain lost ground, eventually finishing in sixth place. The team finished the day in sixth place overall with 21 points (7,8,6).
Porco Rosso skipper Elliott Noye reflected on the first day of racing. "It was a very tricky day of sailing with the breeze coming off the shore. The shift and pressure pattern was very random and we struggled to adjust. We found ourselves always fighting to get back into position, but luckily for us, having good boat speed helped us get some OK results," said Noye.
Similar conditions are forecast for Day Two of sailing. "We will take some lessons from Day One, try to manage the risks and rewards upwind, and improve our starting overall," said Noye.
The Russian team MST (Vasily Grigoriev, Maxim Kuzmin and Mikhail Markhin) is on 9 points (4,2,3), Ukraine's GameChanger (Julia Freespirit, Semen Dmytrenko, Victor Kandyba and Pavlo Matsuyev) is on 15 points (2,6,7) and Vasco Serpa (Animal/SailCascais) with Joaquim Moreira, Pedro Costa Alemão is in fourth place on 16 points (8,4,4).
Find complete results here