Loki and Morning Glory lead Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup

by Jill Campbell, Porto Cervo, Italy on 8 Sep 2007 All to play for in tomorrow's final at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2007

Current Racing, Wally and Cruising division leaders have all to play for in tomorrow’s final day of racing which will see the fifth race of the series and a discard for all divisions.

Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory (GER), is on equal points with Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki (AUS) in the Racing division but holds two first places compared to the Australian’s one.

J One, owned by Jean Charles Decaux is just one point ahead of Indio for the Wallys and the two competing J-Class Bermudian Sloops Ranger (USA) and Velsheda (GBR) are separated by just two points in the Cruising class. Carlo Puri Negri’s Atalanta II, on the other hand, is sitting a comfortable eight points ahead of her nearest rival and with tomorrow’s discard cannot be caught.

Blue skies and bright sunshine weren’t enough to make the fourth day of racing in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, organized by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, picture perfect as extremely light winds persisted for the entire day.

Following the Race Committee’s decision to postpone the start by two hours, crews were impatient to take to the starting line for the first signal at 13.45 even if accompanied by only 5 knots of east north-easterly wind.

The 25 mile course took the fleet to a windward mark initially before heading up to the granite Monaci Island and turning back southward to the Secca Tre Monti rock and homewards past Capo Ferro and the Isola delle Bisce.

Today’s corrected time winners were Favonius (NED), owned by Roland Pieper, in the Racing Division, Andrea Recordati’s Indio (ITA) among the Wallys, Carlo Puri Negri’s Atalanta II for the Mini Maxis and Ranger (USA) for the Cruising Class.

For the first time since the start of the event Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo (NZL) didn’t manage to glide effortlessly around the course as she got stuck in a windless hole in the passage between the Isola delle Bisce and Capo Ferro on the mainland and saw many of her fellow racers catch up quickly. She still managed to cross the finish line first but dropped back to sixth on corrected time and is currently sitting in that position overall.

Tactician Michael Coxon explained what went wrong: 'We got stuck in a gulley where there was a transition between the two winds which were fighting each other between the island (Isola delle Bisce) and the mainland. We were just stuck in the middle and we couldn’t break from the old wind to the new wind. I think we just sat there for around 40 minutes. The other boats coming up saw that we were stuck there and went right around the far side of the island, Morning Glory gained on us there. The smaller boats like Titan also came through and gained there.'

Tomorrow’s forecast predicts more light winds with 3 to four knots of north northwesterly breezes moving round to west oer the course of the afternoon.

Racing is scheduled to continue tomorrow at 11.40 with the final prizegiving taking place at 18.30 on the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s Piazza Azzurra.

CURRENT PROVISIONAL STANDINGS
Place Boat Name Owner Nation, R1-R2-R3-R4-Points

Racing
1. MORNING GLORY Hasso Plattner GER, 1-3-1-4-9.0
2. LOKI Stephen Ainsworth AUS, 2-1-4-2-9.0
3. TITAN XII Tom & Dotti Hill (USA) 4-2-3-3-12.0

Cruising
1. RANGER RSV Ltd USA, 1-3-1-1-6.0
2. VELSHEDA Turbat Inv. Ltd GBR, 2-2-2-2-8.0
3. VIRIELLA Vittorio Moretti ITA 3-4-5-4-16.00

Mini Maxi
1. ATALANTA II Carlo Puri Negri ITA, 2-1-2-1-6.0
2. OPS 5 Massimo Violati ITA, 1-6-1-6 -14.0
3. ALL SMOKE Gunther Herz 3-5-5-2-15.0

Wally
1. J ONE Jean Charles Decaux GBR, 1-2-2-2-7.0
2. INDIO Andrea Recordati ITA, 2-4-1-1-8.0
3. DARK SHADOW Antexis Ltd 5-1-7-3-16.0

Full results so far at http://www.yccsmaxi.com/results07/results1.htm