Copa del Rey - Mixed bag for Azzurra

by Giuliano Luzzatto on 31 Jul 2013 At the Copa del Rey, Azzurra is lying third in the provisional overall standings of the 52 Super Series in spite of a difficult day. It was a good day for the Italian boats in the other classes at the 32nd Copa del Rey.

Following yesterday's excellent start, with a second place in the day's only race, Azzurra was caught today in a bad day. Despite the many positive factors, today's partial results, a third, a fourth and a seventh, certainly don't satisfy the team, that still managed to hold on to a third place overall.

It was a long day, with three races held under a southwesterly thermal breeze which, from the initial 15 knots, steadily decreased down to eight knots, when the committee fired the gun for the third race, after 5 pm.

The first race was marked by an early start, a fraction of a second, which forced Azzurra to sail in a recovery mode. The final fourth place is worth gold in a race dominated by Ran.

In the second race, Azzurra sailed at her best in the first beat, taking the lead which she held on to in the first run. However, in the second beat and the last run, Ran and Quantum were able to come back and finish ahead of Azzurra.

After a good start, the third race was marked by wind shifts that clearly didn't favor Azzurra's choice to sail on the right-hand side of the course, traditionally favored as sunset approaches on the Palma de Mallorca bay. The day thus ended with a bitter taste in the mouth but with the knowledge that a team's strength is seen in times of trouble.

Vasco Vascotto, tactician: 'It's difficult to comment on such a day. If things don't go your way, you can try as much as you can and clearly it wasn't our day today. In the first race, according to our navigation system we were inside. However, I don't put in doubt the OCS and I think we recovered well. In the second race we fought to take the lead and we succeeded, but Ran found an ace up their sleeves on the right, recovering from the back of the fleet, while Quantum climbed up close. In the following beat we rounded the gate under the maximum lefty but then the wind shifted to the right. Going there would have forced us to sail under the spinnakers of the maxis. In the third race, the pin end was favored, we started well on the left, and then I saw a boat of the previous group taking a big righty in front of us, so we jumped to that side, traditionally favored late in the afternoon. Evidently it was not so, but we don't give up, although I must say that today was truly a bad day.'

52 Super Series - 32^ Copa del Rey, Results after four races

1 Quantum Racing, USA, (Doug DeVos) (3,2,2,1) 8pts
2 Rán Racing, SWE, (Niklas Zennström) (1,1,1,6) 9pts
3 Azzurra, ITA, (Alberto Roemmers) (2,4,3,7) 16pts
4 Rio, USA, (Manouch Moshayedi) (6,3,5,3) 17pts
5 Provezza, TUR, (Ergin Imre) (4,7.5,4,4) 19.5pts
6 Gladiator, GBR, (Tony Langley) (7,5,8,2) 22pts
7 Interlodge, USA, (Austin Fraogmen) (5,7.5,6,5) 23.5pts
8 Paprec, FRA, (Jean Luc Petithugenin) (9,6,7,8) 30pts
9 Aquila, AUT, (Aquila Sailing Team) (8,9,9,9) Azzurra website