Gone Sailing - The Latin Rascals Grasp Pole Position

The Latin Rascals Grasp Pole Position

Alinghi drops to third; TWT keeps hold of second with two races to go

The third day of the Rolex Farr 40 European Championships saw three more races in the bag and a new leader climb to the top of the tree. Today was Mascalzone Latino Team Capitalia's day as Vincenzo Onorato and crew posted two seconds and scored their first bullet of the series to lead by 4 points going into the final day.

Once again it was a different winner each race, but the one new face was Mascalzone Latino, and tactician Adrian Stead felt the crew deserved their moment in the sun, "it was a very tricky day out there. I think we, as a team, sailed very well; we got three pretty good starts and kept the boat moving in some patchy conditions. Vincenzo did a great job upwind with Gerry [Mitchell] trimming and downwind his concentration was great too."

Mascalzone has been thereabouts since the outset and as Stead says, "it is an eleven race series and you do just have to keep chipping away at it. When Alinghi came in yesterday Simon [Daubney] said their day was the model of consistency and we tried to emulate that. So we're pleased. Yesterday we didn't have the best day, we ended up with a 3, 4, 5 and you've just got to keep being consistent."

No doubt having seen the overall lead chop and change during the three days so far, Stead shows no sign of overconfidence, "what we know about this fleet is that it is bloody tough; everyone is very good and if you make mistakes you get punished for them. We've still got two more races to go and there are a maximum of twenty points to pick up tomorrow. In order to win the regatta we need to get significantly less than that."

With a third, sixth and ninth today, Farr 40 European Class President, Carlo Alberini owner of Game On, is also finding it hard going, but he is enjoying the experience and sees it as invaluable preparation for the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds in Newport, "we are going to the Worlds in September and of course we hope to improve our performances [because] at the moment they are a bit low. Today we had three races with light wind. You could see that even Alinghi had its difficulties with boat speed. The races were very tactical and we had a good race, one really bad and one in the average - that is the game!"

After Mascalzone's success, the story of the day was the fall from grace of Alinghi. Tactician, Brad Butterworth found the lack of speed in the first two races surprising and even sent one of the crew down to look at the keel, "we weren't going that well so we decided to check everything to see if we could get a little bit more speed because the whole fleet was going faster than us. We were starting pretty well, but everyone was sailing around us, which is a little bit disconcerting. In the third race we got a nice shift up the first beat and led round the top mark, but still couldn't hold that lead down the run and only just led around the bottom mark. So as the breeze died, so our performance was not so good. Its something we have to learn." Butterworth feels that even with a poor day today the championship is far from over.

One happy customer is Gian Luigi Serena, owner of Enfant Terrible, who posted one first and two fifths, and currently lies in fourth overall. Speaking about today, Serena noted, "there were many windshifts and boatspeed was very important. Three races in these conditions were very challenging and all tacticians gave really their best. To pass from first to last was only a question of a quick moment. A great applause to all tacticians; it was hard work for them!"

Of the results so far, Serena is delighted, "Yes, I am very pleased with the results. It is the first year we are sailing in the Farr 40 Class. Of course we have to practice in boat handling, work on the boat speed and improve the trimming. At the moment we are going quite well. We are sailing very constantly. We are doing mistakes, but this is human. Those with the least errors are probably winning."

Organisers, the Club Maretimo de Mahon, faced a challenging time in their efforts to get three more races completed. A 40-minute delay to the first start allowed what breeze there was to stabilise from East of Northeast. Racing into a light and shifty wind that struggled to get to 5 knots really put the pressure on the crews. Big gains were there to be made, but equally big losses.

Race 7 saw Mascalzone Latino capture the favoured pin end and the bulk of the fleet headed left. One by one they tacked back over to the middle confirming the difference in conditions from yesterday. Alinghi went furthest right and by the windward mark was plum last showing none of the form of yesterday. Fiamma held a small lead over Mascalzone which she maintained until the finish, winning by 12 seconds, despite two course changes as the wind continued to swing about. TWT struggled to find her form in the light, but not as much as Alinghi, who following the race gave the keel and rudder a thorough check in the hopes of finding a obvious cause for their lack of pace.

The eighth race of the series was started in 4-5 knots, but with the wind being from the more familiar North East. TWT took the pin, whilst in the middle Fiamma got it all wrong being caught on port tack and above the line. By the time she had restarted the fleet was long gone and Barnaba's excellence in the first race was looking short lived. Enfant Terrible towards the middle of the line played the shifts on the first beat and secured a handy lead over TWT by the first mark, eventually going on to win by 19 seconds. Over the next two legs Fiamma clawed herself back into fifth and Mascalzone overtook TWT. Further ignominy befell Ernesto Bertarelli, who was struggling again, as just at the finish La Marachella squeezed inside the line to push Alinghi into seventh.

The final race of the day, (series race 9) started in fresher breeze, which eventually faded towards the finish. Enfant Terrible attacked the pin leading the majority of the fleet out left, whilst Alinghi went hard right. Mid-beat Alinghi and TWT came together at the head of the fleet, with Mascalzone and Cannonball not far behind. Bertarelli rounded the first two marks ahead of Onorato, but lost the lead shortly after the first leeward mark as once again Alinghi found it difficult going in the dying breeze. Mascalzone held on to win by 17 seconds from Cannonball, who edged Alinghi into third at the last.

Related Items:

Tag it:

Translate the page into your own language

Click on the flag above to select

Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.