Thursday, June 25, 2009

Farr40 Worlds

Porto Cervo put on one of the feasts for which it is famous in the sailing world: A cobalt blue sky, solid warm breeze, decent waves and three excellent races. All on day one of the Rolex Farr 40 World Championship 2009. Barking Mad (USA) sits atop the heap this evening, with a narrow three-point lead over the 2008 Worlds sparring partners Mascalzone Latino (ITA) and Joe Fly (ITA). Today was all about keeping clean and trying to stay mean. Some got it right, others did not. The three race winners were Barking Mad, Nerone (ITA) and Transfusion (AUS). All three sit in the top five and will be happy to have held it together on a day when only four boats posted results inside the top ten in each race. Current World Champion, Vincenzo Onorato on Mascalzone, sits in second place after quietly going about his business to score a 2, 10, 2. All three races were held in a breeze that varied between 16 and 22 knots over the day, but stayed pretty consistently from the west. All three races were won from the front and clearly getting of the line cleanly, in good position was key. The second key to a successful day was minimising the points spread. According to Vasco Vascotto, tactician on Nerone the left hand side of the course looked the best, certainly for the first two races where their tactic of winning the pin worked well. In the third race, Nerone went hard left again and was more than a little disappointed to find itself the wrong side of a shift, which bumped the crew hard down the rankings to mid-fleet.
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