Asian 49er and 49erFX Championships 2019 © ICARUS

The final day of racing at the Asian 49er and 49erFX Championships 2019 demanded different skills as the early morning Southerly wind stayed on for much longer than usual.  With the Abu Dhabi Presidential Palace in the backdrop, the Race Committee was quick to setup the course and racing began as scheduled at 1100 hrs.

After a sterling performance yesterday, the Omanis Musab Al Hadi and Waleed Al Kindi were assured of the Gold medal and the 49er Asian Champions title, but  the battle was then set for a final day showdown between the Hong Kong, Chinese and the Indian teams. Indian’s KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar, who’d moved up into 4^th position on the penultimate day of racing, clearly wanted to prove themselves and did so in style, winning all three races of the day to win the Silver medal. A 4^th, 8^th and a 7^th place today for the young Hong Kong team of Akira Sakai and Russel Aylsworth moved them into bronze position overall, as the Chinese team of Ding Mingling and Liu Tian also fumbled to finish 7^th, 5^th and 5^th in the three races of the day. The Omanis should be happy with their teams’ performance, and the battle is set for a good fight to see who wins the 49er Olympic qualification in March 2020.

Final Results

49er

Sailed: 15, Discards: 2, To count: 13, Entries: 15, Scoring system: Appendix A

49er FX

Sailed: 15, Discards: 2, To count: 13, Entries: 3, Scoring system: Appendix A

Photography: https://www.facebook.com/pg/asiansailing/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2429890783776915 Video Highlights: Practice Race –Asian 49er and 49erFX Championship 2019 URL  https://youtu.be/zPidoTOWBW4 Day 1 –Asian 49er and 49erFX Championship 2019 URL https://youtu.be/0PdEnOkEriw Day 2 –Asian 49er and 49erFX Championship 2019 URL  https://youtu.be/c-QeGOsQ0XY Day 3 –Asian 49er and 49erFX Championship 2019 URL https://youtu.be/Mp1noksoFD0