Italy dominates

As Luca Valerio/Maurizio Abba's Helly Hansen Alina moves into pole at the Volvo Melges 24 Worlds

Wednesday June 4th 2008, Author: Fiona Brown, Location: United Kingdom
There was only one race on each course today at the Volvo Melges 24 Worlds, hosted by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, Porto Cervo, but what an amazing race it was. For the second day running the competitors awoke this morning to brilliant sunshine and a fantastic warm Mistral-driven breeze of about 16 knots from the northwest.

The day’s initial objective was to complete the sixth and final race of the Round Robin series, after which the competitors must return ashore to hear any protests and then finalise the split into Gold and Silver Fleets for the remaining races of the series. The Race Committee had also hoped to get the fleet back out on the water in the late afternoon to complete race seven but a strong and building wind of 22-25 knots with regular gusts of towards 30 knots made it impossible.

With six of the possible 12 races now completed and the discard in play, it’s all change at the top of the leaderboard with just ten points separating the top four boats and twenty three points between first and tenth. The racing on both courses was incredibly tough and thrillingly close and spectators were kept on the edge of their seats as the teams battled each other and the spectacular conditions.

With an extremely confident win on Course A, Luca Valerio, helming Maurizio Abba’s Alina Helly Hansen, has taken the overall lead by just three points, with Alberto Bolzan, sailing Pilot Italia for Gianni Catalogna, now lying in second place overall after coming fourth in the Course A race.

Over on Course B Lorenzo Bressani and the Uka Uka Racing team of Lorenzo Santini, won their race and now hold third place overall just one point behind Bolzan and six points ahead of Flavio Favini, helming Franco Rossini’s Blu Moon, who came third on course B.

"In the last two days we sailed very well," said Uka Uka Racing's team manager and trimmer, Federico Michetti. "Today it entered the discard and Alina, which until yesterday was a little bit behind discarding a thirtieth place, now heads up the provisional overall standing. It's still everything very open. The first 10-12 of the overall standing are all able to win. It'll depend on weather forecast and how many races will be possible to do between tomorrow and Friday. We are one day later in respect to the schedule and tomorrow it should be still strong Mistral"

Nicola Bianchi and his team aboard Saetta had a great day. Their second place on Course B was sufficient to move them up the overall standings from 11th to fifth and onto equal points (24) with Nicola Celon of Giorgio Marchi’s Marchingenio and American Brian Porter’s Full Throttle who lie sixth and seventh respectively on count back. Celon and Porter both finished sixth on their respective courses.

The all-amateur Corinthian Division’s Bruce Ayres, sailing Monsoon, also gave the professionals a run for their money today. Ayres, a former Melges 24 Corinthian North American Champion, has been a familiar face at the front of Melges 24 fleets since the early days and revels in heavy airs. Today he took on Luca Valerio, Gabrio Zandona, helming Joe Fly for Giovanni Maspero, and Alberto Bolzan in an incredible dog fight that was a joy to watch. Valerio had incredible speed and managed to open up a small lead on the run which he extended on the last beat, but behind him Ayers, Zandona and Bolzan continued to go at it like cats and dogs. The professionals did everything they could to shake Ayres off up the final beat but he hung in there tenaciously eventually splitting Zandona and Bolzan on the line.

In the overall Corinthian standings Oyvind Peder Jahr, helming the Norwegian boat Terra Eindomsmeglng for Stian Briseid, scored a fourth place and continues to hold his overall lead by just one point from Jean-Francois Cruette and Cederic De Kervenoael’s Bouygues Telecom, who won today’s course B Corinthian race and move up from third to second. Giovanni Pizzatti, helming Maidollis for Gian Luca Perego, has slipped down to third overall after a slightly disappointing eighth place, while Bruce Ayres’ great day at the office has moved him up from fifth to fourth. Tommaso Del Rio, helming Riverstone for Alessandro Bagnoli, is now fifth Corinthian overall, while Estonia’s Tonu Toniste on Lenny and Germany’s Rudolf Houdeck on Secret Men’s Business, are both on 21 points with Toniste taking sixth place on count back.

Although disappointed not to be back on the water for a second race this afternoon the competitors unanimously agreed that the Race Officer’s decision was the right one. The weather forecast is for a steady 17-22 knots from the northwest tomorrow, reducing to 14-17 knots on Friday so the fleet is hoping for two more days of great sailing. The Race Committee has already announced that racing will start early at 10.30 tomorrow giving them the best possible opportunity to complete three more races.

The Gold and Silver fleets have been decided with the first 57 places overall assigned to the Gold division and places 58 through 114 assigned to the Silver division. The series continues until Friday when there is a final start time cut off of 1500 hours. Six of the twelve scheduled races have now been completed.
 
Pos Boat Owner/helm Sail No. R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 Tot
1 ALINA HELLY HANSEN) Luca Valerio/Maurizio Abba ITA 722 1 30 1 2 3 1 8
2 PILOT ITALIA Alberto Bolzan/Gianni Catalogna ITA 727 2 1 3 1 7 4 11
3 UKA UKA RACING Lorenzo Bressani/Lorenzo Santini ITA 715 10 6 1 2 2 1 12
4 BLU MOON Flavio Favini/Franco Rossini SUI 521 11 5 6 3 1 3 18
5 SAETTA Nicolo Bianchi/Nose Sailing Team Ass. Sport ITA 716 27 1 11 6 4 2 24
6 MARCHINGENIO Nicola Celon/Giorgio Marchi ITA 638 7 50 7 1 3 6 24
7 FULL THROTTLE Brian Porter/Brian Porter USA 649 5 3 2 13 8 6 24
8 POIZON ROUGE Jean/Jean-Marc Monnard SUI 599 3 5 10 9 5 8 30
9 ALTEA Andrea Racchelli/Andrea Racchelli ITA 735 36 7 2 3 4 15 31
10 BRONTOLO AB MEDICA Matteo Ivaldi/Filippo Pacinotti ITA 667 6 13 9 5 6 5 31
11 COTES D'ARMOR Ronan Dreano/Troel Simon FRA 470 2 9 4 20 7 13 35
12 TEAM BARBARIANS Jamie Lea/Stuart Simpson GBR 691 1 8 29 6 11 10 36
13 ALFA SPIDER Gabriele Benussi/Vanni Edoardo Pavesio ITA 742 25 10 4 7 6 9 36
14 GULLISARA Carlo Fracassoli/Comerio Giuseppe ITA 673 3 20 12 7 5 13 40
15 JOEFLY Gabrio Zandona/Giovanni Maspero ITA 633 22 27 8 8 1 2 41
16 ETABETA Luca Bursic/Paolo Testolin ITA 730 29 4 18 4 9 9 44
17 SEVENSTAR SLAM Simon Straus/Simon Straus GBR 592 29 14 19 4 2 5 44
18 ONLINE -SIM FIREBOLT Roberto Martinez/Carla Ubertalli ITA 574 9 2 12 14 38 7 44
19 WOLFPACK RACING TEAM Geir Dhal Andersen/Team Lek NOR 733 6 32 3 17 14 4 44
20 A-TEAM WESTAWAY John Pollard/John Pollard GBR 690 5 28 5 10 15 10 45
21 BOUYGUES TELECOM Cruette/De Kervenoael FRA 612 7 16 5 21 11 7 46
22 EURO-VOILE Christophe Barrue/Denis Infante FRA 639 16 10 10 5 8 16 49
23 TERRA EINDOMSMEGLNG Oyvind Peder Jahre/Stian Briseid NOR 554 15 4 6 12 18 20 55
24 MAIDOLLIS Giovanni Pizzatti/Gian Luca Perego ITA 664 8 12 13 11 16 21 60
25 LENNY Tonu Toniste/Tonu Toniste EST 646 24 8 7 14 12 26 65
26 MONSOON Bruce Ayres/Bruce Ayres USA 637 20 24 23 12 10 3 68
27 MELLNOSE Pablo Soldano/Pablo Soldano ITA 609 27 13 14 25 9 8 69
28 RETT RUNDT HJORNET Herman Horn-Johannesse/Team Rett Rundt Hjornet NOR 732 4 2 16 58 27 20 69
29 RAT PACK Oliver Schwall/Oliver Schwall GER 627 34 30 8 8 17 11 74
30 PROFIL Bruno Jourdren/Bruno Jourdren FRA 756 31 20 17 9 19 11 76
31 PROXIMO Arpad Litkey/Xsailing HUN 728 17 3 21 23 14 35 78
32 SECRET MEN'S BUSINESS Houdek Rudolf/Houdek Rudolf GER 731 14 11 20 24 24 12 81
33 RIVERSTON Tommaso Del Rio/Alessandro Bagnoli SLO 689 8 45 40 13 12 12 85
34 ROCAD RACING Mikael Lindqvist/Ingemar Sundstedt SWE 532 13 12 17 15 32 39 89
35 ZIG ZAG 18 Henri Samuel/Henri Samuel FRA 644 12 17 37 23 10 30 92
36 PERROS-GUIREC Albaret/srPerros FRA 261 25 11 18 22 16 32 92
37 TORPYONE Edoardo Lupi/"I Lupi di Mare" ITA 681 20 34 16 11 39 18 99
38 GIVE ME FIVE Adrien Follin/GM5 Racing Team FRA 451 18 7 22 26 27 32 100
39 GAZOO Doug Clark/Geoffery Pierini USA 551 17 9 29 35 23 24 102
40 FRANZ ROCKS Christoph Skolaut/Christoph Skolaut AUT 406 4 60 46 18 21 14 103
41 MACS Dietrich Scheder/Dietrich Scheder Bieschin GER 537 34 15 21 16 60 17 103
42 CODE ZERO Geoff Carveth/Miles Quinton GBR 654 26 14 28 17 25 22 104
43 FISHDOG Mario Ziliani/Augusto Viansson Ponte ITA 571 41 6 15 10 60 33 105
44 MARGARITA Jakub Kozelsky/Petr Matuska CZE 704 12 22 25 40 22 26 107
45 SWEATY BETTY Stephen Alex Shafer/Stephen Shafer USA 677 9 39 13 26 20 59 107
46 TRESVALLES.COM.AR Benoit Cheron . FRABC1/Benoit Charon FRA 381 14 23 22 32 32 16 107
47 DUMBO Giovanni Debiasi/Giovanni Debiasi ITA 682 30 49 19 21 22 19 111
48 BLOW Peder Nergaard/Peder Nergaard NOR 600 52 37 9 39 13 14 112
49 CONTE OF FLORENCE Andrea Magni/Arturo Mazzanti ITA 567 16 19 24 58 18 36 113
50 HYDE SAIL Nigel Grogan/Nigel Grogan GBR 546 50 26 20 32 13 28 119
51 HOOCHY COOCHY  Carlo Vroon/Carlo Vroon NED 117 31 15 30 24 21 40 121
52 AQUA RACING John Christian Eriksson/John Christian Eriksson SWE 431 28 33 27 19 36 15 122
53 O\'TOMATE Lebourdais/Paul Coirre FRA 375 23 19 15 41 25 41 123
54 MASAMANTES 628 Lorenzo del Felice/Renato Vallivero ITA 628 24 37 32 27 17 29 129
55 KA-NALU-NUI Gunter Tzeschlock/Gunter Tzeschlock GER 640 11 36 38 27 28 28 130
56 RODOP Lucas Neumann/Martin Kulik CZE 692 15 38 23 58 31 23 130
57 STORM Morten Astrup/Morten Astrup NOR 697 46 43 31 15 26 22 137
More photos on the following pages....
1234next ›last »

Latest Comments

Add a comment - Members log in

EmailPrintTwitterFacebookLinkedInStumbleDigg

Tags

    Latest news!

    Back to top
      Back to top