Vishnu Sujeesh of Chennai continued to dominate the proceedings in the Topper Class competition of the Deloitte Monsoon regatta at the Hussainsagar lake here on Wednesday.
The weather eased this morning with lighter winds which helped the lighter sailors. As a result, the competition was tougher and the fleet was closely knit. After the penultimate day of competition in the Topper Class, Vishnu’s chances of becoming the champion seem bright.
Vishnu won Race 3 with ease by leading from start to finish. But in Race 4, Dheer Singhi gave him a tough time and pipped him at the finish. Ragi Rajnikanth of Hyderabad who has been also doing well was third. Race 5 was again won by Vishnu.
Stunning display
But Race 6 saw an upset as the Hyderabad lad stunned the more-seasoned sailors from Chennai.
Ragi Rajnikanth, who had never sailed a Topper before this event, started last but took a hard right course to find the right winds and took the lead and held on till the end.
At the end of six races in the Topper class, Sujeesh leads with nine penalty points followed by Dheer with 11 points and Rajnikanth with 16.
The Match Racing event which got underway saw a bunch of colourful spinnaker sails on the water and some close contests between the top seeds.
Ayaz Shaikh and his crew were at their aggressive best and handled the conditions well.
At the end of the second round-robin, top seed Ayaz Shaikh of Mumbai was leading followed by Atool Sinha of Mumbai and Manu Jairam of Hyderabad in that order.
The Match racing finals will be sailed on Friday. The Optimist fleet had their practice sessions on Wednesday.
The results (Topper races):
Third race: 1. Vishnu Sujeesh, 2. Dheer Singhi, 3. Rajnnikanth.
Fourth race: 1. Dheer Singhi, 2.Vishnu Sujeesh, 3. Rajnikanth.
Fifth race: 1. Vishnu Sujeesh, 2. Dheer Singhi, 3. Rajnikanth.
Sixth race: 1. Rajnikanth, 2. Vishnu Sujeesh, 3. Dheer Singhi.
