News and pics: Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai
Mumbai, Oct 24: The Yachting Association of India (YAI) Senior National Championship - 2015, organised by The Indian Naval Watermanship Training Centre, Mumbai concluded today.
Admiral RK Dhowan, Chief of Naval Staff and president of YAI, was the chief guest at the closing ceremony and witnessed the final races and gave away the prizes. Nethra Kumanan from Tamil Nadu, who is vying for Olympic 2016 qualification, scheduled at Oman on mid November 15, walked away with a gold medal in Laser Radial Class of boat.
In the Laser (standard) the results were predictable with Upamanyu Dutta, the No 1 ranked sailor from INWTC, Mumbai winning the gold medal. The silver medal was grabbed by Gitesh also from AYN.
In the Laser (radial), TNSA was the name to go by. In Laser (Radial) Nethra Kumanan won the gold medal. Ananya Chouhan from EMESA had to settle for the second place with silver.
In RSX, Dyne Coelho from GBSA won and sealed his gold medal. He was closely followed by Jerome Kumar S from AYN winning the silver medal.
In the 470 Class, the pair P Muttu and Narender Rajput from AYN sizzled through and won all the races, as well as the gold medal. Ayaz Shaikh and Shubham Patel from AYN maintained their second position with very steady sailing.
The pair Sandip Jain, Pawan Kumar and Shekhar Singh Yadav, Rahul Yadav won the gold and silver medals respectively in the Enterprise Class. India won more than 10 medals at the Enterprise Class World Championships in the past with Homi Motivala and Pushpendra Garg being conferred the coveted Khel Ratna award and Aashim Mongia, R Mahesh, Girdharilal Yadav the Arjuna awards.
The Hobie 16 catamaran, was a tough fight till the end with Samal Pradhan and Rahul Rai from INWTC, Mumbai winning gold, closely followed by Brijraj Verma and Pankaj Kumar from INWTC, Mumbai winning silver and bronze medals respectively.
The president of the Yachting Association of India and the chief of the naval staff admiral R K Dhowan witnessed the final races of the event and later interacted with the sailors, team leaders, parents and officials.
Speaking at the prize giving ceremony he said, “Intrinsically, the importance of sports has been in promoting an active healthy lifestyle, creating a culture of sportsmanship and team spirit and helping in the overall development of an individual. To a nation, however, promoting sports brings with the spirit of the game, national pride, a sense of social inclusiveness and of course employment opportunities. With increased government spending on local and global sports events and Indian athletes winning international acclaim, the sport is on a steady footing but there is still a lot that needs to be done.”
The final day of the YAI Senior National Championship 2015 saw delightful sailing conditions, a steady wind averaging 10 knots with a moderate swell which made the course challenging.
The principal race officer was precise with the course and prompt with race starts and managed to hold 5 races on that day and made up for the time lost the previous day. With 10 races completed the sailors got the advantage of discarding 2 of their worst scores, exactly what they had hoped for.
The championship was hosted by the Indian Navy Watermanship Training Centre (INWTC), Mumbai. The YAI Youth National Championships will be hosted by Tamil Nadu Sailing Association at Chennai from November 25 to 29 and more than 200 young sailors are expected to participate in the Optimist, Laser 4.7, RS One, 29er and 420 classes.