Britain’s Grant Gordon won the fifth and penultimate race of the Yanmar Dragon Gold Cup 2, with Evgenii Braslavets second and Gery Trentesaux third.
In the overall standings with just one race remaining to sail, Thursday’s fourth place put Pedro Andrade into a ten point lead over nearest rival Pieter Heerema who finished the race in tenth.
Peter Gilmour’s fifth moves him up two places into third, five points behind Heerema. Anatoly Loginov finished the race in thirteenth, which was sufficient for him to hold onto fourth overall.
Grant Gordon’s win jumped him up two places into fifth.
Third placed Dmitry Samokhin had a tricky day ending up nineteenth, and drops from third to sixth, nine points behind Andrade.
Whilst Andrade’s lead is comfortable this is a no discard regatta and so anything could still happen with Fridays’s final race, which gets underway at the earlier time of 11.00 and for which there is a 14.30 latest start time.
Martin Pålsson was the top performing Corinthian sailor of the day but fellow Corinthian’s Poul-Richard Hoj-Jensen and Jan Bakker were close behind him.
There are no changes on the Corinthian leader board with Hoj-Jensen first, Pålsson second and Bakker third going into the final race.
The penultimate race of the Yanmar Dragon Gold Cup 2019 was yet another heavy airs humdinger. With 18-22 knots average and gusts up to 27 knots from the south-south-west, plus a punishing short chop.
The early morning Friday report from Medemblik is that the wind is lighter so hopefully we are all set for a great final showdown to decide the champions.
Dragon Gold Cup – Provisional Top Ten after 5 races
1st Pedro Andrade, POR84 – 4, 5, 2, 9, 4 = 24 pts
2nd Pieter Heerema, NED412 – 3, 1, 15, 5, 10 = 34 pts
3rd Peter Gilmour, JAP56 – 2, 2, 28, 2, 5 = 39 pts
4th Anatoly Loginov, RUS27 – 8, 4, 11, 4, 13 = 40 pts
5th Grant Gordon, GBR820 – 5, 12, 10, 14, 1 = 42 pts
6th Dmitry Samokhin, RUS76 – 1, 7, 5, 11, 19 = 43 pts
7th Gery Trentesaux, FRA428 – 6, 22, 19, 3, 3 = 53 pts
8th Evgenii Braslavets, ITA77 – 17, 31, 4, 1, 2 = 55 pts
9th Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen, GBR822 – 13, 3, 7, 17, 15 = 55 pts
10th Stephan Link, GER1162 – 12, 14, 1, 32, 7 = 66 pts
