Royal Cup Marina Ibiza - Azzurra holds on to second place

by Azzurra Sailing Team on 19 Sep 2014 The boat flying the burgee of Yacht Club Costa Smeralda holds on to her second place in the regatta leaderboard thanks to a beautiful win in the day's first race at the Royal Cup Marina Ibiza. Quantum stretches its lead at the top.

Two windward/leeward races were held today at the Zenith Royal Cup Marina Ibiza, final stage of the 2014 Barclays 52 Super Series, under a light breeze, blowing between seven and 11 knots. In both prestart procedures, leaders Quantum attacked Azzurra. The first start saw the boat representing YCCS get off the line at full pace, to the windward of its direct adversary, control the entire fleet and increase its advantage on the way to the finish line, despite having Quantum hot on its heels in the final stretch of the race.

Third place went to Sled and fourth to Ran, another direct adversary of Azzurra.

The second start, very similar to the first one, saw Azzurra's bow slightly behind her adversary, blocked by the fleet and with no options in tacking to the right-hand side of the course.

This is tactician Vasco Vascotto's take on today's racing: 'Despite the less than perfect start in the second race, we reached the first weather mark right behind the three leading boats, with a chance in coming back. However, both runs turned out to be problematic, with a very unstable breeze, especially near the finish area. We gave up positions there, slipping back to sixth, compromising thus the race. It's a pity because in the second beat we had reached Ran and in the second run it seemed we could attack Sled. The positive note is, despite that, we were faster than yesterday.'

Guillermo Parada, skipper of Azzurra, commented on the day: 'We had one good and one bad race. In the first one, we stayed in front of the fleet and were able to choose our options. In the second one, we didn't have a very good start and that limited a bit our possibility to choose. It then became a little bit more complicated but we hold on to our second place in the regatta. We shaved two points off Ran's advantage and got closer to them in the season's overall scoretable. Another day is over and we have to keep pushing in order to overtake them and finish the season in the highest position possible.'

Racing resumes tomorrow with a coastal race whose start has been brought forward to 12pm CEST. As always, racing is streamed live with Virtual Eye and English commentary on Azzurra while real-time updates directly from the race course are posted on Azzurra's Facebook page and Twitter account.

Standings: ZENITH Royal Cup Marina Ibiza

Overall after five races
1 Quantum Racing, USA, (Doug De Vos USA) (1,2,3,2,1) 9pts
2 Azzurra, ITA, (Alberto Roemmers ARG) (3,5,2,1,6) 17pts
3 Sled, USA, (Takashi Okura JPN) (4,1,6,3,4) 18pts
4 Rán Racing, SWE, (Niklas Zennström SWE) (2,4,4,4,5) 19pts
5 Gaastra Pro, NED (Marc Blees NED) (6,6,1,8,2) 23pts
6 Gladiator, GBR, (Tony Langley GBR) (5,7,8,5,3) 28pts
7 Provezza 7, TUR, (Ergin Imre TUR) (7,3,7,6,7) 30pts
8 Phoenix, BRA, (Eduardo de Souza Ramos BRA) (8,8,5,7,8) 36pts