Gazprom Dragon Europeans at Yacht Club of Saint-Petersburg - Day 4
by Ivan Bidzilya 22 Jul 2016 11:34 BST
18-22 July 2016
Another day and two more races of the Gazprom Dragon European Championship were sailed in St.Petersburg YC of on 21st July. Again the Germans dominated the day both in overall and Corinthian divisions but RUS27 Anatoliy Loginov maintains the lead before the final day of racing. This time only with 1 point margin.
The 5 points lead that Anatoliy Loginov enjoyed before the start of the day over UAE7 Markus Wieser has shrunk into a single point after the acting Russian champion scored double seventh and the German master managed third and eighth finishes.
Today the wind at the Gulf of Finland was lighter and more stable than the day before with less shifts only 10-15 knots. Again, with conditions changed two new race winners emerged: GER11 of Marcus Brennecke and Michael Schmidt (GER1157).
"Yesterday streams of cold air were dropping from the clouds and while hitting the water created unpredictable shifts – says Jochen Schumann, tactician of GER11, - today the conditions were more straightforward. We were leading the first race from the start but tacked too early and missed an important shift thus finished only 12th. Then in the second race we learnt the lesson and finally won our first race of the Championship".
However, real winner of the day was Stephan Link's crew GER 1162 with Frank Butzmann calling the shots who managed to finish second twice. With this result, the German crew got into third position from yesterday's fourth with only 2 points adrift of Wieser.
"There's no special tactics – good wind, good speed and as long as we can get the right shifts, - says Link - We had a good start in front of the fleet. Fleet is very tight, especially at the top mark, and if you manage to hold your position, than there are chances. Otherwise, you lose."
Before the final day of the Gazprom Dragon European Championship in St.Petersburg the game is wide open. Top three are separated by only three points with two more races left to sail and one more discard to be applied. "Given the possible scenarios we don't have any plan before we go on the water, - says Markus Wieser, - we just have to sail smart and avoid unnecessary mistakes".
In the Corinthian division, the crew of Tanja and Bernhard Jacobsohn (GER1113) with two top ten finishes today regained the lead from Frank Berg (DEN408). Still the two crews are tied on 89 points at 16th overall with third placed Corinthian Jan Woortman (GER1175) not far behind at 20th overall. So, here we have the same picture as in overall scoring with at least three crews with realistic chances to win.
Full results at dragoneuro2016.ru/results
Detailed schedule at dragoneuro2016.ru/schedule