Dan Slater leads Ben Ainslie and Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic in Finns race: Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta
New Zealand’s Dan Slater took the lead over Ben Ainslie of Great Britain and Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic from Croatia in the Finns race of Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta on Monday, June 6 on the waters of
Weymouth and Portland. Due to low wind conditions, there could be only one Finn race after the weather got better on the shores.
The weather at the Weymouth and Portland shores was not up to the expectations at the start of the day as the early day conditions calculated 8 to 10 knots wind on the shiny day. It turned 17.30 as
the Finns started sailing on water for the first race.
As expected by the Briton Ben Ainslie, the race was a very challenging one and he was closely followed by Slater in the beginning. The former world champion, Denmark’s Jonas Hogh Christensen, was
at third position after Slater.
The Auckland sailor, Slater soon reduced the gap and came close to Ainslie in the second run. He took advantage of the Briton’s erroneous move and finally grabbed the lead, maintaining his position
till the end of the race.
While speaking to the local media, Slater said, “It was a one way track with heaps of tide. To be honest I was lucky to pop out after the start and then it was really hard for people to pass after
the first bottom mark rounding because of the current. I passed Ben at the bottom of the second run. Jonas was with us as well but he was third most of the time.”
However, Ainslie told the reporters, “There were a few issues on the start and I made quite a bit of an error going into the wrong gate which gave Dan a big break. I did manage to catch up quite a
bit but Dan ended up winning by about four boat lengths so it was a bit frustrating doing that after making a solid result.”
Meanwhile, the Croatian sailor, Gaspic nudged Hogh down at number four position after he overtook him in the second run.
The overall results are given below;
1 Dan Slater = 1
2 Ben Ainslie = 2
3 Ivan Kljakovic GaspiC = 3
4 Jonas Høgh-Christensen = 4
5 Zach Railey = 5
6 Giles Scott = 6
7 Mark Andrews = 7
8 Jonathan Lobert = 8
9 Ed Wright = 9
10 Vasilij Zbogar = 10
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