KARACHI, May 23: Defending champion Shehyar Arshad and Mohammad Riaz began their defence of the title in grand style by winning both the races on the opening day of Enterprise National Sailing Championship held at Pakistan Navy Aquatic Club Thursday.

Twenty sailors came up on the start line for the fight for the top honours in the National Class.

The first race saw Shehyar and Arshad round closed in on the leaders after third and eventually emerge comfortable victors. They were followed home by Akram/Imran with Naseem Javed/Abdul Hameed finishing in third place.

Shehyar/Riaz took a flying start in the second race and never looked back and kept gaining the lead and ran out easy winners ahead of Akram/ Tariq. The inexperienced duo of Naseem/Hameed once again ended up in third spot.

The championship has been divided into fleets. The Gold fleet using the glass fibre boats where as silver fleet using wooden boats.

In the Silver fleet Pakistan Navy’s Mohammad Anwar Qazi/ Sarfraz are leading after two races with Chaudhry Ishfaq Elahi/ Mohammad Rasheed finished second.

PAF Mohammad Yousuf with Mouhammad Tanveer grabbed third place.