J70 European Championships - Carlo Alberini strengthens lead on day 2

by Elena Giolai on 26 Sep 2014 Carlo Alberini of Italy on Calvi Network strengthens his lead with an 11 point advantage at the J70 Europeans. Former European 420 junior champion and current national on the Olympic 470, Simon Sivitz Kosuta, was forced to pull out of the competition after suffering serious damage to his boat.

Riva del Garda enjoyed a beautiful day of sunshine and winds of 12-18 knots with some eventful incidents both technically and competitively including a series of protests which are still under discussion by the jury and serious damage suffered by the Italian skiff helmed by promising national athlete Simon Sivitz Kosuto who was hit head on by Monaco 458, Carpe Diem of Jacopo Carrain in the first race of the day. This was a real blow for Sivitz Kosuta, who had had a partial win on the first day of racing and therefore was one of the frontrunners in the European J70 Championships which run until Saturday at Fraglia Vela Riva. After today's three races and the only discard being brought in, Hugo Rocha of Spain bronze medallist and Class B open sea world champion , competing on 'Scugnizza'climbed into third place in the standings.

After six races -three for each day – Gianfranco Alberini on Calvi Network is still in the lead. Today he had two more wins and a 14th which was discarded. In second place is Italian Alessio Marinelli on Uji, who gradually built up confidence with the race course to achieve a 4-3-1. In third place is Rocha of Spain on New Territories. He was able to take advantage of good partials (7-2-2) after a 20th which was discarded. Still in fourth place is Slovenian Team Ceeref. First in the Corinthian non-professional category is Charlie Esse of Great Britain on Baby J. He dropped to fifth position in the standings. Second place in the same category is Andrea Magni with another Brit David Atkinson on Jawbreaker in third.

Tomorrow racing starts at 13.00 with southerly winds and an excellent weather forecast. If all goes to plan, the Committee hopes to be able to complete three more races with one final race for Saturday morning with northerly winds.