8 August 2014
In
having earned an amazing score line that included four firsts and
only one race less than second place among 66 entries, Giuseppe
Giuffre's modified M37 Low Noise from Italy has won the 2014 ORC
World Championship in Class C. This is Low Noise's 3rd World
Championship crown, having also won in 2009 in Brindisi, Italy and
in 2011 in Cres, Croatia.
Giuffre's team included helmsman Duccio Colombi, tactician Lorenzo
Bodini, and Giulia Spinelli, Benedetto Coviello, Alesandro Siviero,
Maurizio Loberto, Donatella Ferretti, and Paolo Mandina, who had to
leave for an emergency at home today but was replaced by a spare
crew borrowed from Hans-Peter Schmidt's German GP42 Silva Neo.
Today's blue skies and warm temperatures brought in a perfect 7-11
knot easterly seabreeze for the penultimate day of competition.
After a two-hour delay this morning to wait for this wind to fill,
the conditions became stable in direction enough for race managers
to start their sequences at about 14:00 local time for the day's
first two-lap windward-leeward course.
In Class A everyone behaved at the starts of the 7.2 and 9.6-mile
courses with no recalls, so with flawless crew work, perfect pace
and clear air, Alberto Rossi's Italian TP 52 Enfant Terrible won
both races, their 3rd and 4th in the series. Wind conditions were
variable at 6-8 knots in the first race, and more steady at 8-11
knots in the second race.
With
seven races now completed, Enfant Terrible's discard of 21 points in
the first offshore race dropped their total down to nearly half.
This has closed the gap considerably with the series leader, Claus
Landmark's Norwegian Landmark 43 Santa, who sailed their discard
today by earning an 11th place after having mark rounding problems
in the second race.
So, with only a few points between them, the battle tomorrow for the
Class A championship crown will be interesting, given that the
forecast includes for the first time in the event wind velocities
exceeding 20 knots, conditions where TP 52's will plane downwind
while Landmark 43's will not. The two are well clear of Silva Neo in
third place, who also stands to enjoy tomorrow's planing conditions.
It may be interesting to note that this same boat under its former
name, Airis, was the Bronze medal winner in the 2012 ORC Worlds in
Helsinki.
In the Class B course area there was a little more wind pressure
being closer to the shore, so racing started a few minutes earlier
on a similar 6.2-mile twice-around course. By winning this race,
Albert Schweizer's Leu from Germany had their best race yet, getting
around the track and saving her time on the rest of Class B Gold,
and even defeating the fastest boat in the Class, Peter de Ridder's
Dutch Swan 45 Checkmate, by only 21 seconds.
But
with a discard now applied for this class and Jaak Jogi's Forte
earning 4th in this race and a 1st in the second race, the Estonian
X-41 has taken a comfortable, but not insurmountable, lead of 17.50
points over fellow Estonian Eero Pank's Salona 38 Reval Café. Also
in contention only 0.5 points back is Milan Hajek's Czech team on
his First 40.7 Three Sisters, while another 7 boats are only within
the next 10 points and lie in wait ready to ambush the podium in
tomorrow's final race.
In the fight for the remaining Silver and Bronze medals in Class C,
Patrik Forsgren's modified Beneteau 36.7 Team Pro4U from Sweden is
in the lead, but by only 3.5 points over a fellow Swede, Martin
Nilsson's Salona 37 Vencom. But Michael Mollman's X-37 Hansen is a
mere 0.5 points behind, with Aivar Tuulberg's Estonian Arcona 340
Katarina II not far away with a 7.5 point deficit.
Since the conditions are predicted to be breezy tomorrow, anything
could happen to upset the current standings in all but the Class C
crown. The first Warning signal is scheduled for 10:55 tomorrow for
the final race of the event, with awards to follow racing at 17:00.
Photos: Pavel Nesvadba, Segler-bilder.de/KYC
Links