Craig Davis exceeded his expectations competing in the International One Design class during the opening races of the Bermuda Keelboat Regatta in the Great Sound yesterday.

The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club commodore and crew Ricardo Larranaga, Sarah Fletcher and Christine Whitestone coped best in the light and shifty breeze to come ashore with a slim one-point advantage in the six-boat racing fleet at the Bacardi sponsored event.

Davis’s team posted a 3-2-1 record in the three races contested in the trying conditions to take early control of the nine-race series.

“I am very happy with the way things went today,” Davis told The Royal Gazette. “It was not what I was expecting. There are some really good sailors out there and on a day when it’s so shifty anybody can come up there.”

The trying conditions kept the teams guessing and the race committee busy throughout the day on the windward-leeward racecourse.

The first race was abandoned during the starting sequence after the wind shifted 30 degrees and the racecourse adjusted in all three races as the unstable breeze wreaked havoc.

“We had some big shifts out there, so it was very much snakes and ladders,” Davis added. “We had 45 to 50-degree shifts at times.

“Everybody was making big gains or losses depending on whether they guessed right on the shift in some cases.”

Davis was among four teams tied on five points heading into the last race of the day, which they ultimately won to come ashore in pole position.

The fleet crossed the start fairly even before Davis sailed into some pressure at the committee boat end of the line and gradually extended his lead heading up the first windward beat.

“I’d love to say I knew it was there and was shooting for it, but we were lucky and managed to make a good gain out of that,” he said. “It was just one of those days were you needed to find the pressure.”

Davis and crew rounded the top mark with a two to three-boatlength advantage over the chasing pack.

The race was virtually over by the second and final upwind leg as the leaders extended their advantage considerably and went on to take the win comfortably.

Also punching above their weight was Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club helmsman, Bill McNiven, who is breathing down Davis’s neck in second.

“We were a last-minute team, so we did not have very high expectations as competitive sailors in a small fleet,” he said. “There’s some really good guys here, so we were just hoping to be in the hunt.

“I am very happy with the way the day went, but it was very challenging in the horrible breeze. “We were happy if we saw seven or eight knots that lasted for 20 seconds and then the rest of the time it was four or five.”

McNiven is competing with crew Cow Cao, who is making his debut in the regatta, and co-helmsman Ray DeSilva.

“We had a fourth crew member but he dropped out for today,” McNiven, whose team posted a 2-3-2 record on the day, added.

A further two points back in third is RBYC’s Blythe Walker who posted a 1-4-3 record.

“It was rather fluky but we had a couple of good starts and a couple of close races,” he said. “We are just out here having fun and it’s all good.”

Walker is competing with crew Andre Symonds, Maxwell Curtis and Sam Thompson.

Yesterday’s third race could potentially have a strong bearing on the title, with the breeze forecast to diminish to two to five knots as a high pressure becomes stationary over the island for the rest of the weekend.

“Tomorrow and Sunday look very questionable, so we are hoping we’ll get more racing in,” Davis said.

A new champion will be crowned in the IOD fleet this year as Patrick Cooper has been ruled out after his boat sank and was damaged during Hurricane Fiona last month.

Today will see the J105 class, featuring multiple winner and former Olympian Peter Bromby, begin their series in the Great Sound, weather permitting.