Iffy day for Azzurra at Settimana delle Bocche

by Azzurra on 28 Jun 2016 It was an iffy day for Azzurra who has ended at first day of racing at Settimana delle Bocche, event that is also the second stage of the 52 Super Series 2016, at the middle of the fleet. Provezza is currently in first place. The first coastal race is scheduled for tomorrow.

After the strong north westerly Mistral winds that kept the fleet of twelve TP52s at port yesterday and eliminated the chances of a practice race, today there were lovely conditions in the Costa Smeralda with north westerly breezes at eight to 12 knots.

After two practice starts, the day’s scheduled windward/leeward races began punctually at 12:30. Paprec blocked Azzurra on the starting line and the boat flying the YCCS burgee ended up at the back of the fleet. Azzurra recovered positions and was in sixth place at the first upwind mark and was just behind Xio Huracan at the downwind gate. She ended up finishing eighth in front of her rival Quantum.

The second race saw Azzurra start upwind from Quantum. Nevertheless the American team worked up to the head of the fleet and stayed ahead all the way to the finish. Azzurra finished fourth, just behind Provezza, who got two third place finishes today and is currently leading the Super Series in points overall.

Quotes of the day:

Guillermo Parada, skipper: “It’s good to be finally sailing after three days of strong Mistral that kept us in port when we wanted to tune the boat. It was a weird day with positions going up and down in the fleet. We had an average day. In the first race we didn’t get a good start and that compromised our whole race and in the second race we got a solid fourth. I think we’re not doing very well on the scoreboard, but we’re close in points. We had some opportunities and we weren’t able to take advantage of them. But it’s a long week, we learned something new about the boat, there are some issues that we’re working hard on so that tomorrow we’ll do better than today.”

Vasco Vascotto tactician: “Today practically all the teams got up and down results, just like Bronenosec, first in the first race then last in the second. And Quantum, that placed ninth and first. The fleet is all very competitive and we are right in the middle of it. We have to figure out a way to snap out of it, and we’re working on it.”

52 Super Series - Audi Settimana delle Bocche
Standings after Day one

1 Provezza, TUR (Ergin Imre TUR) (3,3) Six points
2 Rán Racing, SWE (Niklas Zennström SWE) (2,6) Eight points
3 Platoon, GER (Harm Müller-Spreer GER) (7,2) Nine points
4 Quantum Racing, USA (Doug DeVos USA) (9,1) 10pts
5 Bronenosec, RUS (Vladimir Liubomirov RUS) (1,11) 12pts
6 Azzurra, ITA (Pablo/Alberto Roemmers ARG) (8,4) 12pts
7 Sorcha GBR (Peter Harrison GBR) (4,9) 13pts
8 Gladiator, GBR (Tony Langley GBR) (5,8) 13pts
9 Alegre, GBR (Andres Soriano USA) (10,5) 15pts
10 Sled, USA (Takashi Okura JPN) (11,7) 18pts
11 Xio/Hurakan, ITA (Marco Serafini ITA) (6 DNS/13) 19pts
12 Paprec FRA (Jean-Luc Petithuguenin FRA) (12,10) 22pts

Racing is scheduled to start tomorrow, June 29th at noon.