PANJIM: The picturesque seaside lawns of the Hawaii Retreat at Dona Paula, reverberated with cries of “Go, Dayne”, as Goa’s young windsurfer Dayne Coelho successfully took on the seasoned veterans of the Army Yachting Node (AYN), Mumbai, to win the first race in the Olympics RS:X class of the National Boardsailing championship, underway at Dolphin Adventure Sports, Dona Paula, on Thursday.
Locked in a tight battle with defending national champion D P Chennaiah on the first beat, Dayne got the better of him by a swift tack at the windward mark to get clean ahead. By the time of the second rounding of the mark, Chennaiah had fallen back to fourth place, leaving Dayne a comfortable lead which he kept till the finish, with Jerome Kumar of AYN second.
In Race 2, four-time national champion K Sateppa took the lead, with Dayne hot on his heels on the first beat. The young lad, lost ground on the second beat and fell behind AYN’s Jerome Kumar to finish third. In Race three, Dayne was closely behind Chennaiah at the first rounding of the windward mark, but Sateppa showed his experience, coming up two places to take the lead at the second rounding which he held till the finish, with Dayne second and Chennaiah third.
In other results, Myron Gomes took a commanding lead in the Techno293 youth men’s class, winning all three races ahead of Russel Lobo.
Raunak Pai made a similar clean sweep in the Raceboard youth men’s class, ahead of Chadwick D’Mello. Rhea Fernandes and Katya Coelho shared honours in the Raceboard youth women’s class. Rhea won Races one and two while Katya surged ahead in race three.
In Raceboard open men’s class Manoj Kumar Kore of AYN won the first race, while Manpreet Singh of AYN took the second race and P Murugan of Trishna Sailing Club, Bangalore, took the third race.
In the Topper India Grand Prix, Tanishq Desai of Hyderabad won races one and three, while Aditi Sahasrabuddhe of Goa won race two. The honours were bagged, however, by Charbelle of Goa, who came second in all three races to take the overall lead at the end of day one.
