The British team on Louise Racing GBR820 – Grant Gordon, Ruairidh Scott, Sophia Weguelin and James Williamson – opened their Dragon World Championship with a race win that they had hinted at in the warm-up series.
The forecast of strong South Westerly breezes that regularly build to a full ‘Freo Doctor’ during the summer season in Fremantle, meant that an early start was scheduled.
Louise Racing led from the start, rounding the first mark ahead of Russia’s Dmitry Samokhin skippering Rocknrolla and Anatoly Loginov sailing Annapurna, to dominate the fleet.
Rounding the final mark Grant Gordon just had to keep a close cover on the mass of coloured spinnakers to take his first win of the 2019 World Championships by 43 seconds.
The current world champions Andy Beadsworth, Ali Tezdiker and Simon Fry on Provezza crossed in second.
A very close fight for third resulted in Peter Gilmour’s Yanmar Racing Team pipping Anatoly Loginov’s Annapurna, who sailed the whole last leg with a ripped spinnaker that looked more like a string vest. Anatoly did well not to lose many more places.
In fourth place was the Japan flagged Yred of Peter Gilmour, Yasuhiro Yaji and Sam Gilmour, with another GBR registered team, Klaus Diederichs, sailing Fever with Jamie Lea and Olympic sailor Diego Negri onboard in fifth place.
Racing resumes on day two of the championship with two races and an earliest start time of 10:05hrs. Again the breeze is due to be lighter in the morning building later in the day.
Dragon World Championship – Positions after Race 1 (34 entries)
1st GBR820 Grant Gordon / Ruairidh Scott / Sophia Weguelin / James Williamson 1 pt
2nd TUR1212 Andy Beadsworth / Ali Tezdiker / Simon Fry 2 pts
3rd JPN56 Peter Gilmour / Yasuhiro Yaji / Sam Gilmour 3 pts
4th RUS27 Anatoly Loginov / Vadim Statsenko / Alexander Shalagin 4 pts
5th GBR819 Klaus Diederichs / Jamie Lea / Diego Negri 5 pts
6th NED412 Pieter Heerema / Lars Hendriksen / George Leonchuck 6 pts
7th RUS76 Dmitry Samokhin / Andrey Kirilyuk / Jasper Harding 7 pts
8th AUS214 William Packer / Julian Harding / Jock Packer 8 pts
9th GER1058 Kai Michael Schaper / Jochen Schuemann / Klaus Skripalle 9 pts
10th AUS211 Ron Packer / John Longley / Matt Maxted 10 pts
11th AUS184 Stephen Locke / Reuben Rosolin / Patrick Vos 11 pts
12th AUS203 Andrew Foulkes / Andrew Bennett / Matthew Stafford 12 pts
13th GBR763 Simon Barter / James Barter / Donald Wilks 13 pts
14th GBR600 Robert Campbell / Richard Timms / Andrew Biddle 14 pts
15th AUS201 Ray Chatfield / Peter Massee / Karen Chatfield 15 pts
16th AUS109 Peter Bowman / Jennie Fitzhardinge / Ben Fitzhardinge 16 pts
17th AUS144 Ethan Prieto-Low / Brad Stout / John Low 17 pts
18th NED411 Charlotte Ten Wolde / Juliette Ten Wolde / Pedro Andrade / Janka Holan 18 pts
19th AUS205 Nick Rogers / Leigh Behrens / Simon Burrows 19 pts
20th BEL82 Xavier Vanneste / Anne Vanneste / Karl Odent 20 pts
21st AUS198 Robin Hammond / Tony Yates / Arthur Phillips 21 pts
22nd AUS210 Simon Prosser / Mark Glew / Stephen Wray 22 pts
23rd AUS223 Trish Ford / Graeme Fardon / David Hay 23 pts
24th SUI318 Wolf Waschkuhn / Tim Tavinor / Philip Catmur 24 pts
25th AUS213 Geoff Totterdell / Shane Yensch / Chris Maclean 25 pts
26th AUS224 Matthew Whitnall / Steven Cole / Christian Brook 26 pts
27th AUS219 Sandy Anderson / John Moncrieff / Harry Coulson / Caroline Gibson 27pts
28th AUS176 Andrew Moss / Charles Stanton / Jeremy Nolan 28 pts
29th AUS221 Ian Malley / John Hay / Andrew Henderson 29 pts
30th AUS193 Graeme Aldersea / Jonny Warren / James Aldersea 30 pts
31st AUS216 Richard Franklin / Stephen Collibee / Phil Burgess 31 pts
32nd GBR802 Hugh Howard / Jacqui Crawford / Kevin Podger 32 pts
33rd HKG1 Marc Castagnet / Frank Dobbels / Clive Jones 35 pts
34th AUS191 David Lynn / Jack Lynn / Freek Bijlsma 35 pts