43 Copa del Rey MAPFRE Day 4
by Copa del Rey MAPFRE 2 Aug 06:56 AEST
26 July - 2 August 2025
Consistency across a long, hot and challenging three race penultimate day of the ORC European Championships proved vital in the quest for the top titles in all four classes at Palma's 43 Copa del Rey MAPFRE.
In ABANCA ORC 0, the American flagged team of Dave Team's renowned TP52 Vesper composed their best day of the regatta so far. Wearing the Hawaiian shirts which have become the stipulated dress code on each Friday of a regatta, the Vesper crew topped off a pair of seconds with their first race win of the event to lead into Saturday's finale by 5.5 points ahead of Brasil's Plass brothers' Crioula. With a fifth as their discard just now the American crew, who a year ago won the hotly contested ORC division at the New York YC's 170th anniversary regatta, have the Palma title in their grasp.
Tactician Morgan Larson explained the story behind the shirts which may just have given them a modicum of luck but which are certainly great for crew morale, "The shirts are a bit of fun. One of our bowmen Dylan Vogel showed up a couple of years ago on the Friday of a regatta with an aloha shirt and since then someone else did and now it is the rule. You bring your own and if you don't you have to buy the beers. Maybe it made the luck today. But it was a great day today. We found the rhythm with the team and we started a little bit better. Tom Burnham and Sean Clarkson have sailed so many hours with the 52 Super Series here they helped me point us in the right direction. But it was really boatspeed which got us to the top today."
The boat has an exceptional pedigree here and was winning here as Quantum Racing a dozen years ago, Larson explains "Originally this boat was Quantum Racing and many of us sailed the boat then and then Jim Swartz with the help of Gavin Brady and Jamie Gale upgraded the boat with a new deck, a deeper keel and a taller mast and then we were racing it quite well against the other US boats but we did not have an edge upwind, we were a little bit lower. So we decided to do a trim tab, which does affect the rating but not so much that we can't make it work. Dave, the owner, loves the good racing and the camaraderie in the USA and now he is ready to do more here. He as put a lot into the boat and now we are here, we did the Giraglia inshore and are doing this and trying to do Les Voiles de Saint Tropez."
Aifos, the Spanish Navy's TP52 which is skippered by HM King Felipe, lies in sixth place, commendable for a boat which is one of the original boats which introduced the TP52 to the Med and which this year is celebrating her 20th anniversary. Alberto Barovier, crew boss, reported, "It was a long day on the water but such lovely conditions for sailing, great condition we had two fairly good races but the one on the middle was not so good as were over the start line early and we had to come back. Overall we have to be happy as the boats ahead of us are super TP52s, very competitive compared to us. I feel we are sailing well but we are still leaving time around the course. We really have only sailed the boat at PalmaVela but broke the mast and so we have not sailed it since and have a new mast and new sails. So we should be pretty happy and at the moment we are the first boat that is not a Super TP and we are top Spanish boat!"
It is a ClubSwan 42 from the home club, Pedro Varquer's Nadir from the RCNP, which has the slenderest lead in Sail Racing Class A. With J/70 World Champion, Lanzarote's Rayco Tabares calling tactics Nadir leads by a single point over a well sailed DK46, Estrella Damm. If Vesper looks to have a reasonably straightforward task tomorrow, Nadir will need to be at their very best to win.
Varquer enthused, "Every race in this championship has to be fought for. In the last race of the day, we came fifth and so are only one point ahead of second place. Tomorrow we'll start again and see what happens. It was probably the best day of the week, the most classic and typical of the bay, a very good day, with three races. Tomorrow we'll go out to win, there's no other option. The ORC is very curious: a few days ago they said that the ClubSwan 42s had a very good rating, but today the DK46s were unbeatable. It was a typical Copa del Rey day in ORC, with the DK46s sailing out front alone but that wasn't the case on previous days. This Copa del Rey is different from others, with a big fleet and a high level of competition. I find it very tough."
In Ubico ORC Class B it is also just one point that separates the class leader, Italy's Guardamago, an Italia Yachts 11.98 from a pair of Estonian challengers, Matti Sepp's X41 Technonicol and Ott Kikkas Sugar 3, last year's European champion in C division. Both boats from the Baltic sailed weighty discards in the third race today while Guardamago posted three second places.
Daniele de Tullio (ITA) is CEO of Italia Yachts and main trimmer on Guardamago, "Focused and sharp, that's how we approached today's races aboard Guardamago. Climbing back up the leaderboard has not been easy, especially since we had to discard a 21st place finish from the offshore race. We gave it everything, both mentally and physically, to stay consistent through three demanding races where the breeze never truly settled, constantly shifting right and left. We finished second in all three races, choosing not to take unnecessary risks. It was a particularly intense day also for our owner, Massimo R. Piparo, who helmed the boat throughout the three complex inshore races."
And it is even closer in Uber ORC Class C where the German flagged team of Hendrik Brandis on Early Bird will need to reverse the decline they showed today, going 3,4,5 to lead by just half a point from the Spanish Vrolijk 37 of Antonio Porres which won two races today which their complemented with a third.
Friday's session for the Balearia Women's Cup sees the provisional leader as María Bover's Balearia Team RCNP, which has won its last seven matches and has accumulated ten race victories out of a possible 14. In second place, five points behind the leaders, is Esther Gómez's CN Regatas, which in turn leads CN El Balís by another five points. Tomorrow, the last five matches will be played to complete the qualifying series. The six best-ranked teams will compete for the title in an exciting final series of three double-points rounds starting at 2:00 p.m.
The awards ceremony for the 43rd Copa del Rey MAPFRE will crown the new ORC European champions at 9 p.m. at the Palacio de La Almudaina.
Find out more at www.regatacopadelrey.com