Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta - Leaders remain unchanged on day 2

by Jill Campbell/Donata Cuppone on 6 Jun 2014 Despite a second thrilling day of racing in near perfect conditions at the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta in Porto Cervo, the leaders of each of the three participating divisions remained unchanged. However with two more days of racing left and lighter conditions forecast for the rest of the week, all is yet to play for.

With a 17 knot Mistral breeze on the starting line, the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda's Race Committee today set a course of approximately 20 miles that took the fleet north to the Monaci Islands before heading back towards the coast and along the channel between the mainland and the islands. The 19-strong superyacht fleet rounded a mark off the south-east corner of Spargi and then set their gennakers for the downwind run to the finish at the Secca Tre Monti rock as the wind died out somewhat.

In Division A the 35-metre Firefly scored her second bullet ahead of the WallyCento Magic Carpet 3 whose second place today brought her up to second place overall ahead of the 37-metre Ghost.

In Division B the 37-metre Moonbird also claimed her second bullet ahead of the Southern Wind 100 Cape Arrow with America's Cup veteran Peter Holmberg calling tactics. Cape Arrow's result allowed her to leapfrog the 34-metre Unfurled to claim second place overall.

'It was a beautiful day, perfect conditions here in Porto Cervo,' commented Holmberg after racing. 'The course going up inside the islands was perfect for bringing all the boats together and having close racing. We're very happy with our boat, it's a charter and the first time for our owner with this boat and this class and we are enjoying it a lot. We learned the boat a little bit yesterday so we took all our lessons well and sailed better today, so we're happy.'

The newly-launched SW82 Grande Orazio, flying the YCCS burgee, dominated Division C once again while second place went to the Oyster Yachts Karibu. The 80-foot Selene took third place in today's race and also sits in third place in the overall classification on equal points with second-placed Karibu.

Jesper Bank, Danish match racing champion and tactician on board Karibu had an interesting day: 'We had sensationally good conditions for 9/10ths of the race today. It was good for us, we could lay the first couple of marks and we could use the energy the boat can generate so we were doing really well in the first half of the race, so I'd say it looked like a better race for us today with the winds we had but when we got up near the ferries we definitely had a right of way situation with two ferries at one time so according to the sailing instructions we had to bail out which we did and that sent us off to the wrong side and cost us a couple of minutes but other than that I would say it was a pretty good race.'

Racing is scheduled to continue at 12 midday tomorrow with East South-Easterly breezes of around 10 knots forecast.

For full results visit the YCCS Event website