Let me start by thanking Chetan Fernandes and Shahid Basheer who so magnanimously agreed to send their take on the event but haven’t delivered so far forcing me to put in my bit!!

The event was held from the Doha Sailing Club and there were eight entries from 5 countries who participated in the event namely India(in strength with 3 entries), Bahrain, Germany, UK and Qatar(with 2 entries). There were 5 International Umpires and 1 national umpire called up to wave flags and keep the match racers in check with an IRO to head the race committee team. The format was a double round robin with a best of 7 semi finals(1st to 4 points) and a best of 5(1st to 3 points) Finals scheduled with the top skipper of the round robin to sail against the 4th place skipper and so on. The boats used were the Beneteau 7.5 which were the same ones we sailed at the Asian Championships and Games last year.

The round robin phase as usual yielded some interesting match ups and the notable one of course was the one in which Shahid beat us in a race where we were forced to retire and save face for not having read the rece committee flags correctly signifying no spinnakers! We lost to the Germans in a close race who had earlier last year beaten us at the Dubai Match Race single race final and gone on to win the event. The celebrations on Shahid’s boat were surely worth a mention and was great to see as the same exuded the enthusiasm that has been missing in Indian Sailing and is what we are trying to cultivate at the MRAI. Unfortunately for Shahid in the 2nd RR he lost one too many matches to narrowly be edged out of the semi finals by team Bahrain. We then went into the semi final stage of the event with the Germans topping the league phase with 14 wins out of 14, us with 11 wins, Aashim with 10 and Bahrain with 8 wins. The unfortunate part was we were to race Aashim in the semis’ whilst Bahrain and Germany would face off in the other end.

The things really worthy of mention apart from the racing was the excitement at the pool and table tennis tables in the evening with 8 of us going at each other’s throats with no holds barred. There were many a Mango shake won or lost with the juice centre across the road making great profits at all times of the day and night! Personally it was great to travel with Aashim again after a sojourn of close to 4 years after the Asian Games campaign in 2002……I realized that he is still the grumpy bugger who wakes me up in the morning, steals my chai and chases me as he is always on time and hyper prior to racing!!!! I obviously am quite the opposite and get slower as he gets grumpier in the mornings :) .

We won the Semi Finals against his team comprising of Aashim Mongia(skipper), Gulshan Chunekar(spinnaker trimmer), Ninad Mayekar(Jib), and the ever so serious Chetan Fernandes(Foredeck) and to date I believe that beating him under 10 at table tennis the previous evening was a lot more satisfying than beating him on the water!! The semis were really hard fought with Aashim coming closer and closer as the races went by and we survived by the skin of our teeth in the last race where he tacked past us only to lose the lead tacking into a hole on the last upwind leg. This probably goes to show that at the end of the day there is no substitute for racing in the right way. Considering that we had to pull out all stops to beat him I thought that the difference lay in our experience which proved critical. Confidence is King in a knock out series! In my opinion this confidence can only be got out of experience and the fact that some level of consistency has been achieved that you honestly believe can be duplicated. In a one off Match Race it is any ones game as a mistake could cost the best a race against the most lowly ranked skipper.

The other semi final was won quite easily by the German who seemed to be in great nick going into the finals on the final day. The also was a petit finals scheduled between the losing semi finalists in a 1st to 2 point format along with the Grand finals where the Match up was between us and the if I may say so over confident Germans. Team Aashim Mongia won the Petit finals 2-0 to clinch the 3rd place so we had 1 on the podium!

We lost race 1 of the Finals and the German capitalized on a tactical error on the 1st beat to gain control of the match from us to hold on till the finish. We went hard at him in race 2 and hung on to slender come from behind lead to finish 6 secs ahead of him at the finish. It was now all square with everything to fight for and the next entry just added spice to the whole proceedings…… The German was penalized for an infringement of the rules just 30 seconds into the pre start and as he was carrying a penalty we played it safe and hung on to his tail for most of the race till we broke through into the lead when he attempted to take his penalty on the 2nd upwind leg. We held on to finish ahead 2-1 in our favour we thought. But the race was thrown out due to the technicality that as we were to be match 2 in the flight. pennant 1 was raised instead of 2 which may have led to the finalists believing that the petit finals were still on and may have affected the entry of the finalists. The petit finals had already been decided 2-0. (All are in may and my personal view as unfortunately I am not privy and rightly so as a competitor to the reasoning/deliberations of the International Jury; only the protest and the decision!). Now that it was technicality time we filed a red flag protest against the German for illegal use of a block and rope to aid in hoisting the spinnaker after the next race where we relaxed knowing fully well that there could be only one decision for this protest namely us going back up deservedly 2-1. Two can play the game for it’s a game for two and should be treated as such!!!

This set up the next race nicely as the shake up due to the red flags had a calming influence on us and we had to win just one out of two left. We had a conservative pre start(if there is something like that in this sport) and managed to squeeze him out at the committee giving us the lead and control which we held quite comfortably in the reasonably steady 6-8kts that were prevalent during the race to clinch the title of ‘Champions Of The Qatar Match Race 2007’.

At the end as I always do I must thank my crew comprising of Pallela Seshagiri Rao(Jib Trim), Balraj(Foredeck and sorry guys no surname or 1st name just ‘BALRAJ’…..he had problems with the selection committee, the visa authorities, the airlines and every one else including the guy who wrote the certificates so maybe he should think of adding a few mindless syllables either b4 or after his name?? ), Rajesh Somnath Dhulaji(Spinnakker) and Neeraj Sharma(Foredeck/mainsheet) for two things; One for delivering when it mattered most and secondly for putting up with my lousy decision making, foul temper, bad language and praise(in small and measured doses) for most of their waking hours! They were great and I can write this and sail because of their expertise and camaraderie in the boat.

I HOPE THIS ANSWERS THE MANY QUESTIONS THAT I HAVE BEEN GETTING FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE HEARD THE STORIES OF THE GREAT RACING AT DOHA. THE LAST THING OF COURSE WAS THE DEATH THREAT I HAD RECEIVED FROM MR AJAY BALRAM THE CHIEF UMPIRE FOR THE EVENT WHO’D INFORMED ME THAT HE’D CARRIED FIREARMS INTO THE COUNTRY FOR THE SOLE REASON OF SHOOTING ME IF WE LOST ANOTHER FINAL AT DOHA!

Credits to (Shahid and Chetan please note for future repeated reference)

AILUR SESHADRI RAMACHANDRAN MAHESH IYER

Ps: The aim of this article was to put the racing picture as clearly as possible from my point of view across to match racers in India. If I have damaged ego’s in the bargain so be it! life’s a capital ‘B’ and everyone can’t be kept happy. See you on the water in numbers and scrapping. As an epilogue the German guy is a wonderful sailor whom I respect and we are still great friends. It would have been great to renew our rivalry as we are 1-1 at Mumbai this year but he can’t come due to certain constraints of time.