Sailing: Cubans from Sunday at the Snipe World Championship

Havana, August 17 (RHC)-- Cuban sailboats Nelido Manso, Sanlay Castro, Pedro Vega and Darien Martinez will compete from this Sunday in the Snipe Open World Championship, scheduled to take place until Thursday 25 in Cascais, Portugal.

Manso, world champion in Murcia '99, will be the skipper of the mixed crew accompanied by Sanlay, while Vega will lead the other one with Martínez, in both cases as guests.

According to the website www.snipe.org, after the dates scheduled for the registration of the boats, on Saturday 20th there will be a practice regatta and on Sunday 21st the official actions will start with two races.

The veteran Manso, in addition to his 1999 world crown, together with Octavio Lorenzo, also a Cuban Sports Glory, holds three gold medals and one silver medal in the Pan American Games, and one gold medal in the Central American and Caribbean Games.

Another of the world champions present in Cascais is Uruguay's Ricardo Fabini, who won the 1989 World Cup and the 1990 Hemisphere Cup, and now competes with Larita Morata.

The entries reflect the presence of 88 boats from 17 countries, with the venue being the Naval Club of the coastal municipality of Cascais, belonging to the district of Lisbon, Portugal.

Among the favorite boats are the Brazilians, with the participation of 13, the Americans (8) and the Argentineans (4).

Manso, Sanlay, Vega and Martínez are part of the Piratas del Caribe -Cuba- team that qualified for the Final Series of the SSL Gold Cup, which will take place from October 28 to November 20 in Bahrain.