5.5m Alpen Cup at Fraglia Vela Riva Overall
by Robert Deaves 3 May 19:48 PDT
1-3 May 2025
The Jean Genie (GBR 43, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ruairidh Scott) only needed one more race to secure a record fourth Alpen Cup for Peter Morton, and took a third place in race 7 to win with a race to spare.
Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli- Saether, Johan Barne) maintained second place while a win in race 7 helped Girls on Film II (GBR 41, Louise Morton, Charlie Cumbley, Sam Haines) move back up to third overall. The current world champions, Ku-Ring-Gai III (AUS 66, John Bacon, Edward Wright, Joost Houweling) won the final race.
There was a change in the weather in Garda with lots of cloud and an early moderate breeze, but this then died away resulting in a delay to racing, before coming back at 12-15 knots in the afternoon. The wind again decreased for the second race to 8-10 knots but similar to the rest of the event, it was shifty and tricky bringing a lot of new faces to the front.
Girls on Film II needed a good race to stand a chance at the podium and they sailed a flawless race, leading to the right and around the first mark and then extending away for a comfortable win. Artemis also did a good job to cross second while The Jean Genie rounded in fourth and then overtook Caracole (SUI 214, Bernard Haissley, Nicolas Berthoud, Daniel Stampfli) on the downwind to cross third and win the event with a race to spare. They then headed to the crane to leave the others to slug it out for the other medals.
Ku-Ring-Gai III had struggled all event and with a best result of a seventh, was not showing the form that won them the world championship last year. However, the last race was theirs, leading from start to finish for a race win on crew, Joost Houweling's birthday. Second place went to the steadily improving MELX IV (GRE 6, Stavros Papagiannopoulos, Arkadii Kistanov, Panagiotis Kampouridis) after a solid race near the front while Marie-Francoise XXII (SUI 233, Jurg Menzi, Jurgen Eiermann, Kim Chabani) crossed third.
Artemis produced another consistent day with a 2, 4 to secure the silver after a very solid week. Girls on Film II tried the right again in the final race, this time to no avail, and trailed in mid fleet, but were close enough to Aspire (POL 17, Przemyslaw Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) and Shaolin (SUI 226, Flavio Marazzi, Andreas Kindlimann, Patrick Zaugg) to take the bronze by just two points.
Louise Morton said of the event, "We've had a great time in Riva. It's a superb location. The conditions are brilliant. I have not been sailing all winter but to come down here and have sunshine and 15 knots, 3 days on the trot, really shifty conditions, but great, great racing. Really close with short start lines. What's not to like? It's been superb.
"We're really excited now about gearing up to go to Sopot in Poland for the world championship. I think that's going to be a really good regatta and by all account Sopot is going to be a really fun place to go racing."
John Bacon was happy to find some form after a difficult event for him. "We had a reasonable day. It was long regatta. Great fun in tricky Garda and congratulations to Morty. In the last race we got a bullet which was great. We haven't sailed since the last day at the world championship in Benodet last year and we were a bit rusty for a few days and finally, on Joost's birthday - apparently he always wins a race on his birthday - we were really glad to get a bullet in the last race as we look forward to going to Poland. Can't wait."
In winning the Alpen Cup for the fourth time - though it's the fifth time his boat and the team has won - Peter Morton sets a new record for the event.
"It was a pretty tricky day. There was a lot of port bias on the start, but it was still hopefully paying to the right soo we started at the boat and tacked but the left stayed quite strong, so we were fourth at the top got past one boat on the run and stayed out of trouble and were happy to cross the line in third, which meant we didn't have to do the last race which was quite fortunate given how it changed.
"Garda is a great place to race, and probably one of the best places in the world to sail. It suits our boat with the breeze. It was a bit lighter than usual, but we are learning how to sail it a bit more down range and that's helping a bit."
The fleet in Riva was extremely competitive with 17 boats from 10 countries and including seven world champion skippers. All are heading to Sopot, Poland, in one month for the world championship where the battle for supremacy will continue.
Overall Results: (top five, 8 races)
1 The Jean Genie (GBR 43, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ruairidh Scott) 18pts
2 Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli- Saether, Johan Barne) 25pts
3 Girls on Film (GBR 41, Louise Morton, Charlie Cumbley, Sam Haines) 33pts
4 Aspire (POL 17, Przemyslaw Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) 35pts
5 Shaolin (SUI 226, Flavio Marazzi, Andreas Kindlimann, Patrick Zaugg) 35pts
Full results available here.
Photo gallery available here.