On a historic day for sailing in India, Nitin Mongia was crowned world champion in a single-handed sailboat, in the OK Dinghy World Championships in Panaji, Goa, on Thursday.
The Mumbai ace made sure of the title despite finishing third in the sixth race on the penultimate day of the event.
Mongia, who had won the first five races over the previous days, placed third on Thursday, behind Ben Morrision of New Zealand, who recorded his first win in the championships at Dona Paula jetty and moved to second place overall, and Rob Coutts, also of New Zealand, in that order.
In the overall results after six races, Mongia has five penalty points. He was followed by Ben Morrison (14), Nick Craig (GBR-15), Rob Coutts (NZ-26) and Greg Wilco (NZ-28).
A look at the weather this morning did not inspire too much confidence in the minds of the organisers. It looked to be another clear, blazing hot day with not a whisper of wind. But as everyone on shore waited and watched, the wind slowly filled in as if answering their prayers.
Mongia was once again in the first boat to launch, a habit he has stuck with throughout the regatta to good effect. All the other competitors then launched and sailed out for what was to prove to be a pivotal day's racing.
The fleet seemed evenly spead out on a square start line but when the start gun went off, the boats on the right side of the line seemed to have the better of the start while Mongia and other boats on the left side of the line had a hard time getting up to speed.
Craig and Morrision surged into the early lead and stayed on the right-hand side. Mongia, who has shown great understanding of the wind throughout this event, stayed on the left-hand side of the course and took advantage of a lot of pressure on that side to surge back into the lead and round the windward mark first. He was followed by Rob Coutts and Craig.
Gautama Dutta of India rounded the fourth spot, followed by Ram Kumar Singh, also of India.
Craig then sailed out from under Coutts on the first reach to round the GYBE mark second, followed by Coutts and Ram Kumar.
On the second reach down to the lee mark, Craig tried to sail to windward of Mongia and started a luffing match that allowed Coutts to round the lee mark first. He was followed by Craig, who managed buoy room on Mongia, who finished in third place.
On the next beat upwind to the windward mark, Morrison, who had been quietly working his way up through the fleet, made his move to the right side of the course and rounded the windward mark in fourth place, with Courts in first, Craig in second and the outstanding Ram Kumar in third place.
Mongia, who by his own admission, was taking it easy, dropped to fifth.
On the long run back to the lee mark, Morrison took best advantage of the waves and sailed out from under Craig to round the mark second behind Coutts in first.
Up the final beat, Morrison took advantage of some tactical indecision from Coutts to sail through and win race sixth followed by the outstanding Coutts.
Mongia, who had quietly made it back through Craig, came third to confirm his maiden World championship followed by the disappointed Craig.
Mongia, who hails from Mumbai, was a silver medallist in the O K Dinghy Asian Games 2002. He is also in the midst of campaigning a star class boat along with Lr. Cdr Mahesh Ramachandran with an eye on the 2004 Olympics.
Following are the overall results of OK Dinghy World championship:
1. Nitin Mongia (India) 5 points; 2. Ben Morrison (New Zealand) 14 points; 3. Nick Craig (Great Britain) 15 points; 4. Rob Coutts (New Zealand) 26 points; 5. Greg Wilcox (New Zealand) 28 points.
