The German sailor Thomas Müller, continues to lead the Dragon Gold Cup in Finland. Yesterday, he finished in third place and has now a 22.3 points lead in front of another German, Michael Shattan in GER 968, who finished fourth.

The winner in yesterday’s race was the Portugese boat, POR 35, with José Bello at the helm. This boat finished second overall at the recent Baltic Cup, but so far in this regatta they’ve had some inconsistent results including a 7th, 35th, 21st and 1st which puts them in 10th place after four races.

Second in yesteday’s race was Arved von Grünewaldt in the Swedish boat SWE 283. Only two days ago they hit a rock resulting in a bad keel damage and almost had to withdraw from the regatta. They decided to lift the boat and repair the damage. They got the damage fixed and sailed a great race. Harald Schmidt, crewmember commented: “We did a great start and then we just went on. We kept the lead for the whole first round, but on the second beat the Portugese boat played the shifts better and passed us. We didn’t manage to overtake them again but we finished second with a margin of perhaps 400 metres to the third boat.”

The previous day’s winner, Dutch Fred Imhoff in NED 247, finished in 10th place but is still in the top three with the same total points as GER 968, Michael Shattan.

Last year’s Dragon Gold Cup winnner, Harm Müller-Spreer in GER 950, who climbed to fourth place the previous day finsihed yesterday’s race in 21st place and then fell back to sixth overall.

Racing will commence tomorrow (Thursday) after today’s lay day.

Results

1 GER 983 Thomas Müller 21pts, 7 5 2 2 3

2 GER 968 Michael Schattan 44pts, 1 5 20 4

2 NED 247 Fred Imhoff 44pts, 4 14 1 10

4 DEN 298 Lars Jensen 63pts, 11 10 9 9

5 SWE 321 Tom Löfstedt 65pts, 2 27 13 5

6 GER 950 Harm Müller- Spreer 67pts