ORCi European Championship Prysmian-Celadrin day 1

by Emanuel Richelmy on 26 Jun 2012 Day 1 of the six day ORCi European Championship Prysmian-Celadrin was a long one.

30 boats representing eight countries and carrying a wide variety of talent on board, faced the light southwest breeze which showed early promise, but did not stabilized until late in the afternoon when Race 1 got started.

In 10-11 knots, Class A completed their three lap and Class B their two lap race around the buoys.

By being the fastest in the fleet, G. Martin's TP52 Aniene not only sailed in clear air and completed the course over 11 minutes ahead of their nearest rival, but corrected to a victory of nearly six minutes over the day's runner-up in Class A, the Stillitano-Narduzzi partnership's Nautilus Wave. But the NM43 was only 19 seconds ahead of Andrea Lacorte's Salona 41 Vitamin A in corrected time, who beat Armin Schmid's new Farr 400 Sonnenkonig by 18 seconds, who in turn was ahead of Giovanni Labini's new Grand Soleil 46 Exprivia Luduan Reloaded by only four seconds. In fact, the boats finishing in second through seventh places in this class were only 55 seconds apart in corrected time.

Being close in size to her rivals, Class B's winner, Giuseppe Giuffre's M37 Low Noise, did not have the same crushing effect on her rivals as did Aniene, finishing only 31 seconds ahead of runner-up Morgan, a new Grand Soleil 39 skippered by Nicola de Gemmis, and only 47 seconds ahead of Vincenzo de Blasio's NM38S Scugnizza.

Racing continues tomorrow, with the morning start of the long-distance race over a course of about 130 miles that is set up to be laps sailed from Punta Ala to the island of Giglio and return.

Results at the event website