Hyderabad : The weather gods were kind and an additional 4 races were held in the Optimist Class of the Deloitte Monsoon Regatta 2013 here at Hussain Sagar Lake, Hyderabad today. With a total of 67 young sailors across both the fleets the lake was awash with little white sails and their 
little helms slipping across the waters of Hussain Sagar some gallantly working towards winning and some just having a good time with wind and water.
The fleet has immense depth and apart from Chitresh Thata of Chennai and Sarvanan of Mumbai not one sailor got more than one win and the position swings covered a wide range of sailors some who finished 1st in a race and then dropped to 15th in the next and back to 4th in another.
Vishnu Sarvanan was disqualified in Race 4 for having missed rounding a mark after Aniket Rajaram protested him and his ranking without discard fell to 3rd from a clear 1st. The Jury was lenient in its sentence and a misdemeanor of this nature could have led to a suspension from the regatta if viewed differently. Sarvanan lives to fight yet.
In case the weather plays truant tomorrow Sarvanan will have no chance to recover but one cannot deny his consistency in performance with two wins, two second and two thirds in the rest of the races.
Current National Champion Mahesh Balachander is now poised at the top of the pack with 37 penalty points followed by Chitresh Thata with 44 penalty points and Sarvanan with 62 penalty points.
No discards have been made as yet but the situation for Sarvanan is favorable with one discard placing him back on top of the heap by a huge margin.
With his consistent performance and those of his closest rivals Mahesh and Chitresh, this Monsoon Regatta defending champion is likely to once again regain the crown.
Mahesh Balachander is close at his heels and is confident, having beaten him, albeit by a whisker, at the last nationals at Marve, Mumbai.
The Deloitte Monsoon Regatta is a national ranking championship and kids vie for top honours here to make it to the national squad and from thereon to international regattas. Sarvanan is off to the Worlds in Italy on the 10th immediately after the Monsoon Regatta.
The Family Regatta kicked off with 8 teams vying for gold with some boats taking up to 6 team members in the imported Omega boats. The winners of the Optimist and Family Races will be given away prizes at the Closing Ceremony tomorrow evening.
The overall placings at the end of Race No. 7 are as follows:
Mahesh Balachander 1 (37 points), Chitresh Thata 2 (44) Vishnu Sarvanan 3 (62)
Race Results at a glance
Race No. 4 Mahesh Balachander 1, Aniket Rajaram 2, Jayalakshmi 3
Race No. 5 Vishnu Sarvanan 1, Naveen Kumanan 2, Raghavendra Kaki 3
Race No. 6 Vishnu Sarvanan 1, Chitresh Thata, Mahesh Balachander 3
Race No. 7 Chitresh Thata 1, Mahesh Balachader 2, Vishnu Sarvanan 3