Audi TP52 World Championship - Azzurra 3rd overall after Coastal Race

by Giuliano Luzzatto on 13 Jun 2014 In today's beautiful coastal race, more than 30 miles long, Azzurra took fifth place and claimed third overall in the provisional leaderboard of the Audi TP52 World Championship. Ran takes the race, followed by Quantum and Phoenix.

Today's race was full of twists and turns with Provezza, Quantum and Ran alternating in the leadership several times as the TP52 fleet sailed between Caprera and La Maddalena, rounded the Isle of Spargi and then headed back to Porto Cervo.

Azzurra had a good start but still got stuck in traffic at the pin end of the line. The Italian boat didn't find her pace despite the brave and spot-one tactical calls. On the way back to Porto Cervo, and despite having to defend herself from the repeated attacks of Gladiator and Hurakan, Azzurra managed to come to just a few lengths from the leading four boats but was unable to climb back up any further in the standings.

During their dock-in, Azzurra's crew was welcomed by a group of young sailors from the racing team of Club Nautico Arzachena, eager to meet the crew and get aboard the TP52 yacht. They all went back to the dock with a big smile on their faces, sporting a cap of the boat that embodies the sporting essence of Yacht Club Costa Smeralda.

Rod Davies, coach of Azzurra, commented on the day: 'It didn't really go according to the way we wanted it to go, that's for sure. The start was decent but we didn't have a great first quarter of the race and lost touch with the leading boats. From there we were never really able to crawl back into the boat race. Tomorrow we have windward-leeward races and we are confident with that. We will probably have three races and it's just a matter of whittling away at Quantum's lead right now.'

Vasco Vascotto, tactician: 'The truth is that today was a difficult day for us. We had a good start at the pin with Quantum that seemed to over rather under the line. We'll examine the images. Obviously, we had to pay the price by reaching Capo Ferro a bit at the back of the fleet and then we weren't able to sail as fast as we usually do. We'll try to understand the reasons. After rounding Spargi, we didn't take full advantage of our new gennaker for close reaching - A3 in the technical jargon – which would have allowed us to come back, because of an erroneous maneuver in the hoist of the previous sail. Our fifth place at the end of the race allows us to remain very close to the top of the scoretable but we are, obviously, unhappy.'

Bruno Zirilli, navigator: 'The start was difficult, with boats that didn't give us room the way they should have done. However, we hit the line at the pin end, exactly where we wanted. Quantum was faster and took the early advantage, while our boat speed in the long beat to Spargi was never what we expected. We benefited from sailing close to the rocks thanks to a favorable current and we started the recovery on Ran, which at that time was fourth. We hoisted our A3, the right sail for that wind angle, but the hoist of the other gennaker didn't go the right way and Gladiator rolled us over. During the rest of the run we managed to defend our position and we were even able to cross the finish line just one and a half boatlengths behind Provezza, which in turn had fallen back to fourth place after leading during the first part of the race. '

Results: Audi TP52 World Championship - Porto Cervo, Italy

Overall after two races
1 Quantum Racing, USA, (Doug De Vos USA) (1,2) 3pts
2 Rán Racing, SWE, (Niklas Zennström SWE) (3,1) 4pts
3 Azzurra, ITA, (Alberto Roemmers ARG) (2,5) 7pts
4 Phoenix, BRA, (Eduardo de Souza Ramos BRA) (4,3) 7pts
5 Provezza 7, TUR, (Ergin Imre TUR) (6,4) 10pts
6 Gladiator, GBR, (Tony Langley GBR) (5,7) 12pts
7 Paprec, FRA, (Jean Luc Petithugenin FRA) (8,6) 14pts
8 Hurakan, ITA, (Giuseppe Parodi ITA) (7,8) 15pts
9 B2, ITA, (Michele Galli ITA) (9,DNF) 18pts