Another positive day for Azzurra at 52 Super Series

by Azzurra on 27 May 2016 Azzurra finished the coastal race in the Scarlino Cup, first event in the 52 Super Series, in third place. Bronenosec was first and Alegre second. Quantum is currently in first place overall.

Thermal breezes at 15 knots arrived punctually in the Gulf of Follonica, and racing started on time. The approximately 25 nm coastal race began at 1:00 PM sharp.

Azzurra got an excellent start on the center of the line and took turns in first place with Quantum and Alegre during the first stages of the first upwind leg towards the Sparviero island off Punta Ala. After losing some ground, an excellent tactical decision to tack away from the coast put the boat flying the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda's burgee in the lead heading to Sparviero together with Bronenosec, who got a good start off the Committee boat, and Alegre. Just behind them, in light and unstable breezes that dropped to just seven knots, came Quantum and Platoon.

The breezes got a bit stronger towards the center of the Gulf and the coastal race continued in a long downwind run towards Follonica, then back towards Sparviero, with another downwind leg towards Cerboli island followed by a leg back towards Marina di Scarlino.

Bronenosec, a Russian boat with several Italians on her team, consolidated her lead during the regatta, while Azzurra continued to challenge Alegre, nearing in on many occasions but finishing in third place. Quantum finished fourth after holding off Platoon.

It was a positive day for Azzurra, and her team is top notch even in start of the season difficulties. Racing will continue up until Sunday with four more windward/ leeward races.

Quotes of the day:

Guillermo Parada, skipper: 'It was an interesting race. We had a great start but were a little off the pace at the beginning. Vasco did a good job positioning the boat before Sparviero and that got us into the leading group. We rounded very close close to the first two, then we had an opportunity to pass Alegre but didn't get it for one meter. Then in the second run another opportunity that didn't materialize for one meter, then in the last run another opportunity that we didn't get for one meter. So we were really close to getting second then were not able to move up. Then we got some garbage on our the keel and rudder and our chances were finished. On the run we just had to defend our position. All in all it was a good day for us, I think that the classification is a bit more compressed and we're satisfied that we've recovered one point on Quantum.'

Vasco Vascotto, tactician: “Today the tactical options were clear, we did well to tack away from the coast before the others but unfortunately we had other little technical problems that slowed us down. Too bad, because we could have won.”

52 Super Series - Scarlino Cup
Standings after Day three

1 Quantum Racing, USA (Doug DeVos USA) (1,3,4,3,4) 15 pts
2 Provezza, TUR (Ergin Imre TUR) (4,9,1,1,6) 21 pts
3 Platoon, GER (Harm Müller-Spreer GER) (5,2,3,6,5) 21 pts
4 Alegre, GBR (Andres Soriano USA) (2,5,8,5,2) 22 pts
5 Bronenosec, RUS (Vladimir Liubomirov RUS) (9,6,2,7,1) 25 pts
6 Azzurra, ITA (Pablo/Alberto Roemmers ARG) (7,8,6,2,3) 26 pts
7 Rán Racing, SWE (Niklas Zennström SWE) (3,4,7,4,10) 28 pts
8 Sled, USA (Takashi Okura JPN) (6,1,9,8,8) 32 pts
9 Xio/Hurakan, ITA (Marco Serafini ITA) (8,7,5,9,7) 36 pts
10 Gladiator, GBR (Tony Langley GBR) (10,10,10,10,11) 51pts
11 Paprec FRA (Jean-Luc Petithuguenin FRA) (11,11,11,11,9) 53 pts