Gaastra 52 World Championships - Azzurra action halts as winds fail

by Giuliano Luzzatto on 9 Mar 2013 At the Gaastra 52 World Championships in Miami, extremely light and unstable breeze forced the fleet to be out of time limit. Azzurra had a great start and managed to sail with caution and concentration in the light winds. When racing was cancelled, Azzurra was approaching the finish line in third place behind Gladiator and Gaastra-Pro while Quantum was trailing the rest of the fleet.

This is what Simon Fry, gennaker trimmer, had to say about today’s action: 'We had an excellent start. Our plan was to immediately go on port and I could say that the two best starts in the fleet were ourselves and Gladiator. We had a really, really good first beat and a good run despite it being snakes and ladders. You could go up and down. At the bottom mark, Vesper and ourselves were tight together, leading and then, unfortunately, the wind died. The race committee decided to abandon the race and there is now confusion and many boats are requesting a redress because the length of the course was different to the one broadcast on the radio.'

The Jury then discarded the request for redress and validated the decision by the Race Committee to cancel the day’s only race. As a result, the event’s overall scoretable remains unchanged.

Vasco Vascotto, tactician, commented: 'The Race Committee made errors that were acknowledged but that didn’t change the final decision which clearly penalizes Azzurra over her more direct adversaries. They proved lucky but I do hope that Lady Luck decides soon to look with kindness our way as well.'

Racing for the Gaastra 52 World Championship will continue on Friday, March 8th at 12:30pm local time (6:30pm Italian time).

Gaastra 52 World Championships, Results after 4 races

1 Rán Racing (Zennström, SWE) 10pts (7,1,1,1)
2 Azzurra (Roemmers, ITA) 11 pts (1,2,3,5)
3 Quantum Racing (De Vos, USA) 12pts (3,4,2,3)
4 Gladiator (Langley, GBR) 17pts (2,6,5,4)
5 Vesper (Swartz, USA) 19pts (5,5,7,2)
6 Interlodge (Fragomen, USA) 22pts (4,7,4,7)
7 Rio (Moshayedi, USA) 25pts (8, 3,8,6)
8 Gaastra-Pro (Blees, NED) 28pts 52 Super Azzurra website