Melges 24 European Sailing Series – Gill Race Team and Taki 4 on top

by IM24CA on 3 Oct 2017 2017 Melges 24 European Sailing Season is approaching its finish soon. Five events completed and finale grande - Lino Favini Cup, the Melges 24 Swiss Open Championship and the final act both for the European and Italian series - will determine the winners of the season-long tour in Europe over the weekend of October 13-15.

Eighty-nine teams, including the fifty-five Corinthian teams, have been competing at the events of the Melges 24 European Sailing Series this year. The World Championship in this part of the world has created more excitement and rivalry, no doubt. Seven teams shipping their boats to Europe or renting a charter boat not only for the title event, but also for the other events, has been great and fostered stronger connections between different continents in Melges 24 family. Eighteen nations are represented in the series ranking having the biggest number of teams participating from Germany and Sweden, followed by Italy and Norway.

Forty-five single races have been sailed during five events with seven discards as according to the scoring after every sixth race sailed a discard will apply. The only team travelling to all events of the series is Miles Quinton's Gill Race Team from Great Britain with Geoff Carveth helming. The teams who have missing only one event are Italian Taki 4, Hungarian FGF Sailing Team and Seven-Five-Nine, Danish UPUPUP, and Ukrainian Barmaley.

Overall top five boats are (89 boats ranked from 18 nations):
1. Gill Race Team GBR694 - Geoff Carveth, Miles Quinton, Christian Birrell, Dan Schieber, Liam Gardener, Raffy Quinton, Ellie Meopham, Josh Wilce
2. FGF Sailing Team HUN728 - Domonkos Rozsnyay, Levente Takacsy, Kristóf Takacsy, Bence Buza
3. Taki 4 ITA778 - Niccolò Bertola, Giacomo Fossati, Marco Zammarchi, Matteo De Chiara, Giovanni Bannetta
4. UPUPUP DEN837 - Bo Boje Pedersen, Joachim Aschenbrenner, Jeppe Ditlev, Casper Ladefogde, Kristian Kvid
5. Seven-Five-Nine HUN759 - Arpad Litkey, Gabor Büki, Zsolt Büki, Balazs Tomai, Botond Weöres, Gabor Pesti

Corinthian division top five boats are (55 teams ranked from 17 nations):
1. Taki 4 ITA778 - Niccolò Bertola, Giacomo Fossati, Marco Zammarchi, Matteo De Chiara, Giovanni Bannetta
2. Gill Race Team GBR694 - Geoff Carveth, Miles Quinton, Christian Birrell, Dan Schieber, Liam Gardener
3. Barmaley UKR661 - Andriy Shafranyuk, Sergiy Levchenko, Viktor Kandyba, Vitaliy Moshkovskiy
4. Lenny EST790 - Tõnu Tõniste, Toomas Tõniste, Tammo Otsasoo, Andres Rohtla, Maiki Saaring
5. White Room GER677 - Luis Tarabochia, Sebastian Buehler, Michael Tarabochia, Caro Tiegel, Laura Fischer, Marco Tarabochia

The final event of the 2017 Melges 24 European Sailing Series will be hosted by Associazione Velica Alto Verbano (AVAV) and supported by Luino Town Council and the Chamber of Commerce of Varese. The race will be for the trophy dedicated to Flavio Favini's, 2007 and 2013 Melges 24 European and 2014 Melges 24 World Champion, father. Also the perpetual trophies of the Melges 24 European Sailing Series, in hold of 2016 winners Italian Andrea Racchelli's ALTEA and Corinthian Miles Quinton's Gill Race Team, will find new holders there.

Both current leaders of the overall and Corinthian divisions - Miles Quinton's Gill Race Team with Geoff Carveth on the helm and Marco Zammarchi's Taki 4 with Bertola-Fossati - have entered already. Some of the best teams in the class will be challenging from Italy - current world champion Gian Luca Perego's MAIDOLLIS with Fracassoli-Fonda and the winner of the 2016 European Sailing Series Andrea Racchelli's ALTEA. Also, the winner of the pre-ultimate event in Medemblik, Hungarian FGF Sailing Team with Robert Bakoczy at the helm is one candidate for the final podium place in Luino. It's great to see many German entries and Mike Goldfarb's WARCANOE from U.S. coming to Luino.

Flavio Favini with AVAV is happy to host the Melges 24 international fleet in Luino: 'We are getting ready for our Melges 24 end of the season Classic, the Coppa Lino Favini. Again, we will have an honour of hosting the Swiss Nationals, the Italian and European circuit finals. We are proud to have been chosen once again by my favourite class to be the final event of a wonderful season. We promise to do our best to match the high level of Melges 24 class and to make you feel at home here at AVAV. We are pleased to invite you to Luino, October 13-15, to race and have a good time after sailing with us!'