An uphill start for Azzurra on day one of the 52 Super Series

by Azzurra on 25 May 2016 An uphill start for Azzurra who had to pay dearly for a few small mistakes in the ever more competitive fleet. Racing continues until Sunday the 29th; Quantum leads the fleet after the first day's racing, with the next four boats all tied for second.

The forecast light southwest breeze of seven to nine knots set the scene for the opening day of the 52 Super Series with two scheduled windward-leeward races.

Azzurra had a good start from the middle of the line in the opening race and the first part of the beat saw her in the top three with Alegre on the right and Quantum on the left after her pin-end start. The regatta developed into a battle between the two for the lead, which went back and forth until the American's managed to pass Alegre on the last leeward leg, with Ran in third. A series of small errors caused Azzurra to drop back, finishing the opening race in seventh.

The Committee had to wait for the breeze to stabilize before starting the second race, which got off after an abandon. Azzurra didn't get a good start, even though they correctly chose the right side of the course. Working up from the back of the fleet is always difficult, and despite their best efforts Azzurra never got above eighth in the race, which was dominated by Sled. Platoon finished in second and Quantum in third, giving the provisional lead to the Americans.

Guillermo Parada, skipper: “It was a tough day for us, in these conditions all the boats are so equal that every small detail that goes wrong can be very expensive; it wasn't our day for sure. In the first race we had several chances to fight for the top positions but as I said, things didn't go our way, we were losing positions one after another. In the second race, I had a problem at the start, I put us behind and made our lives difficult for the whole race. Obviously we are not happy with the results, but we need to put today behind us and start thinking about tomorrow.”

The program calls for two more windward-leeward races tomorrow, with the first start at 1300.

52 Super Series - Scarlino Cup
Standings after Day one

1 Quantum Racing, USA (Doug DeVos USA) (1,3) 4 pts
2 Sled, USA (Takashi Okura JPN) (6,1) 7 pts
3 Platoon, GER (Harm Müller-Spreer GER) (5,2) 7 pts
4 Alegre, GBR (Andres Soriano USA) (2,5) 7 pts
5 Rán Racing, SWE (Niklas Zennström SWE) (3,4) 7 pts
6 Provezza, TUR (Ergin Imre TUR) (4,9) 13 pts
7 Bronenosec, RUS (Vladimir Liubomirov RUS) (9,6) 15 pts
8 Xio/Hurakan, ITA (Marco Serafini ITA) (8,7) 15 pts
9 Azzurra, ITA (Pablo/Alberto Roemmers ARG) (7,8) 15 pts
10 Gladiator, GBR (Tony Langley GBR) (10,10) 20 pts
11 Paprec FRA (Jean-Luc Petithuguenin FRA) (11,11) 22 pts