One point lead for Joe Fly and B-Lin

Sweaty opening day at the Audi Sardinia Cup

The Italy 2 team, comprising the Farr 40 Joe Fly and the Melges 32 B Lin Sailing, leads the overall results at the end of first day of the Audi Sardinia Cup.

Both boats in Italy 2 took first place in the first race of the day and after three races now sit just one point ahead of the Malta team – with the Farr 40 Enfant Terrible and Melges 32 Rush Diletta - in the overall results. However the top of the leaderboard is extremely close with the third placed Monaco team of the Farr 40 Plenty and the Melges 32 Fratelli Giacomel Audi Team, two points behind in third.

The three windward-leewards held off Porto Cervo today were sailed in 10 to 12 knots of NNEerly breeze which lightened and became fairly shifty during the last race of the day. The first race of the series started on scheduled at 12.05 in approximately 10-11 knots of breeze from 335° with clear blue skies and soaring temperatures which topped 30°C.

Team Italy got off to an excellent start with both Joe Fly, owned by Giovanni Maspero and with Francesco Bruni on tactics, and the Melges 32 B Lin Sailing, owned by Luca Lalli and with Lorenzo Bressani calling tactics, taking bullets in the first race. Lalli’s team, which also features Flavio Favini, went on to take another bullet in the second race while Joe Fly took third in the final race of the day.

Lorenzo Bressani, tactician on B Lin Sailing, commented on the light conditions: “The wind was strange today, the Mistral didn’t come in properly, it was more northerly and in the last race there big shifts of up to 30 or 40°. As a class the Melges 32 start on the worst end of the line because the Farr 40s are much faster and squeeze us out straight away, our end is much freer though and especially in the first two starts it was better not to get stuck in the middle of the Farr 40s. Going into today’s races we thought there were three teams to beat but we saw today that with light winds there may be as many as six really strong teams.”

Malta achieved fairly consistent results to place them in second overall: Alberto Rossi’s Enfant Terrible, with Pietro D’Alì aboard, stayed consistently in the top end of the fleet with a 4, 1, 2 scoreline while the Melges 32 Rush Diletta scored 4, 5, 3.

Team Monaco, currently in third place overall, had mixed fortunes but a second place in Race One by the Farr 40 Plenty, owned by Alex Roepers, combined with two second places in the final two races by Riccardo Simoneschi’s Fratelli Giacomel Audi Team, were enough to assure a one point leadover fourth-placed Germany.

Provisional Overall Team Results

1- ITALY 2 : Farr 40 JOE FLY (1,5,3=9); Melges 32 B-LIN (1,1,7=9): 18
2- MALTA: ENFANT TERRIBLE (4,1,2=7); RUSH DILETTA (4,5,3=12): 19
3- MONACO: PLENTY (2,4,5=11); AUDI GIACOMEL (6,2,2=10): 21
4- GERMANY: STRUNTJE LIGHT (3,6,6=15); TEASING MACHINE (3,3,1=7): 22
5- ITALY: NERONE (5,2,1=8); FANTASTICA (7,7,4=18): 26
6- USA: BARKING MAD (7,3,4=14); BLIKSEM (2,6,5=13): 27
7- UNITED KINGDOM: MANGUSTA RISK (8,7,8=23); NGONI (5,4,8=17): 40
8- SWITZERLAND: VANITAS CUBE (6,8,7=21); I.NOVA 2 (8,8,6=22): 43