YAI-Senior and Youth National Sailing C’ships: Jerome Kumar impresses

Vishnu Saravanan wrests the lead from Gitesh in laser standard.

S. Jerome Kumar (in picture) won all the three races in the windsurfing category on Saturday.

S. Jerome Kumar’s performance in the last one year proves beyond that he is one of the best windsurfers in the country.

The 26-year-old from Army Yachting Node (Mumbai) did his growing reputation no harm by finishing first in all the three races in the RS: X category of the YAI-Senior and Youth National sailing championships here on Saturday.

With winds measuring between seven and 11 knots and swells not raising up to 2m added to shifting winds, windsurfers found the going quite difficult. In fact, Race 5 had to be rescheduled as none of them could complete the race in the mandatory 40 minutes.

'Difficult'

“Wind is important for this category, so it was quite difficult, but it was manageable,” said Jerome.

AYN’s Vishnu Saravanan put up a fine performance in the men’s laser standard section to wrest the lead from team-mate Gitesh. Vishnu finished first in Race 4 and 6 while finishing third in Race 5. Gitesh could only finish fourth, second and eighth.

Nethra Kumanan of Tamil Nadu Sailing Association consolidated her position at the top with a 1-1-2 finish in the three races of the women’s laser radial class.

• Laser Standard: Race 4: Vishnu Saravanan (AYN); Race 5: Muzahid Khan (AYN); Race 6: Vishnu.
• 470: Race 4: Praveen Kumar & Ravindra Kumar (INSA/NST); Race 5: P. P. Muthu & Shubham Patel (AYN); Race 6: R. Prabin & Jayhari Das (AYN).
• 49er: Race 4: Prince Noble & Manu Francis (AYN); Race 5: Anand & Vishal (INSA/NST); Race 6: Narendra & Satyaranjan (AYN).
• RS:X: Race 4: S. Jerome Kumar (AYN); Race 5: Jerome; Race 6: Jerome.
• Finn: Race 4: Vivek (AYN); Race 5: Swatantra Singh (AYN); Race 6: Swatantra Singh (AYN).
• Women
• Laser Radial: Race 4: 1. Nethra Kumanan (TNSA); Race 5: Nethra; Race 6: Ramya Saravanan (CESC, Pune).
• Youth
• Optimist: Race 4: Neelanand (TNSA);
• Race 5: Uma Chouhan (NSS, Bhopal); Race 6: Uma.
• Laser 4.7: Race 4: Harshita Tomar (NSS, Bhopal); Race 5: Vivin Vinil (Navy); Race 6: Harshita.