The India International Regatta was inaugurated here on Tuesday by Member Secretary of the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu Mr. Vijayakumar IAS, at the Port of Chennai.
As many as 105 young sailors are taking part in the competition. In all, 69 Optimists, 16 Laser 4.7s and 10 29ers will feature in the championship. Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Ireland and host India are taking part.
Ashok Thakkar, Commodore, Tamil Nadu Sailing Association, expressed happiness on the number of contestants in the fray. Event sponsor Raymond’s Kishore Reddy — he is also the Commodore of RMYC — outlined how his company felt the sport was able to assist in character building. This was also a day of practice races ahead of the championship which gets underway on Wednesday. Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar (TNSA) came up trumps in the 29er fleet. Nicholas Patrick (TNSA) came first in Laser 4.7 fleet and Vishnu Sujeesh (TNSA) took top spot in the Optimist fleet.
The results (Practice) :
29er Fleet : Ganapathy & Varun Thakkar (India, TNSA); Varsha & Aishwarya (India, TNSA); Hussain Bhavnagarvala & Rufus Patrick, (India, TNSA).
Laser 4.7 Fleet : Nicholas Patrick (India, TNSA); Ravindhar Murali (India, TNSA); Suraj Thirunavakkarasu (India, TNSA); Optimist fleet : Vishnu Sujeesh (India, TNSA); Vishnu Saravanan (India, CESC); Jayalakshmi (India, TNSA).
