Kuboo Sailing Team wins first ever Portuguese J70 Nationals
by Clube Naval de Cascais 12 Dec 2023 19:14 AEDT
9-10 December 2023
Kuboo Sailing Team/SailCascais of Rui and Henrique Brites, Luis Pinheiro and Francisco Melo were crowned the first ever Portugues J70 National Champions this weekend in Cascais. The local team kept their consistency scoring 2, 2, 8, 3, 4, 1 in the Cascais light breeze. Good starts, solid boat speed, and conservative tactics were the recipe to the champions. It was not an easy championship. A tough 14 boat fleet coming from 6 countries (POR, ESP, SWE, GER, UK, FIN) had to tackle light and shifty winds as well as current and waves in warm and sunny Cascais.
In the quest for speed in the first day, jib trim and crew working their weights was of the essence, as at the top of the waves, hitting in some walls 4 meters, the wind could veer as much as 30o in the lighter conditions. The Race committee started to delay the first start as the wind needed to fill in but eventually managed to pull two races. The first one in 4 to 6 knots of wind where the boat handling was crucial went for the European Champions Solyd Sailing Team/SailCascaisd of Vasco Serpa with SSL Portuguese captain Afonso Domingos onboard, and the second in easier 6 to 7 knots of wind where the left hand side of the course turned to be serving a little more pressure was won by Castor Marine/SailCascais of Joaquim Moreira with Atlanta 96 Bronze medallist Nuno Barreto, from Clube de Vela Atlantico, Porto.
The second was not an obvious day too, despite the forecast claiming that the wind was going to slowly shift to the right. That really never happened and both sides of the course eventually paid in different races and in different moments of the same race. The first race was all about the current, the win went to Bábá of Cascais' Nuno Santo Silva that ran to the right on the first upwind with all the fleet trailing him. Second race went to Tim Dickinson's Jellyfish, with his son Finn, current ILCA U21 World Champion, at the helm. The middle right conservative approach was their choice in the first upwind as well as in the run. Solid perfomance for the British team at this event. Third race was all about the left hand side pressure and the win smiled to the Finnish team of Magnus Borg. The last race went to Kuboo Sailing Team that sailed very well tactically and took the lead on the second upwind not to open hand of it until the gun.
For the last day the fleet woke up to a foggy and windless Cascais bay. At noon the Racde comitte called the day off and the deed was sealed. Brilliant sailing, nice competition. 6 races, 6 wrace winners. Second place went to Jellyfish of Tim and Finn Dickinson, William Plank and Dan McGauhey four points behind the winners and Sparkly/Active Sailing of Sergey Kirshenin, Artem Basalkin, Olga Nilmaer, Yana Basalkina and Artem Anisimov from Germany closed the podium.
First Corinthian went to Jellyfish and first female to Portuguese double Olympian sailor Sara Carmo on Naturea Pet Foods/SailCascais.
The championship had the support of Cascais Municipality, Visit Cascais, Cascais Marina, Cerveja Sagres, SailCascais and Vista Alegre.
Full Results available here.