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Grael-Ferreira won their second regatta
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Courtesy of Diego Yriarte
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Courtesy of Diego Yriarte
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| Star World Championship - Grael-Ferreira won their second regatta |
| BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA-(15-2-2005) The fourth race of the Star Class World Championship was won today by the Brazilian team, Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira. In second place came the French, Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau and third, the other French team, Phillipe Presti and Jean Phillipe Saliou.
Although Presti and Saliou were first at the beginning of the regatta, in the third leg, Grael and Ferreira achieved to pass them and continued first till the end of the race. As soon as this happened, both French teams started disputing the second place. Xavier Rohart’s and Pascal Rambeau’s performance was better (see Rohart’s comment below).
Competition started at 3:20pm with 51 boats (from a total of 52) and ended at 5:27pm, with 45 boats crossing the finish line. Wind at the beginning came from East-South East at 11 knots till the end of the regatta. The river presented waves.
With this race, Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira stand firm to become one of the candidates to win the World Championship, but still, Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau are first.
Lars Grael, skipper of the winning team said: “This World Championship is marching very well. It is a tradition in this class that you never know who will be the final champion till the last regatta. There is always a strong rivalry among the competitors, it is not easy to win because the best sailors in the world are all present here”. He added: “Sailing in the River Plate is very particular, you need stronger winds to make the boats move fast and there are a lot of waves. This makes sailing interesting”.
Xavier Rohart, skipper of the French team said: “I believe that in a moment we saw ourselves in the first position but we couldn’t hold the lead. We are very happy with our second place. Our plan was to arrive in the first three positions and we did it. It is very important to stay constant in the top positions in this competition. It was difficult to pass our own brothers, Presti and Saliou”.
Abandonments
· Argentines: Guillermo J. Calegari and Patricio Homps; Eduardo Soraide and Corrado Cristaldini (haillard broke).
· Canadian: Brian Cramer y Iain Greensmith
· Japanese: the team left the championship because the skipper had to leave urgently to his country as soon as the regatta started.
· Indians: Ramchandran y Nitin Mongia (pole broke).
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Source: Event Media |
