Rolex Capri

The Rolex Capri Sailing week debuted in good sailing conditions with a west-southwesterly wind ranging from 8 to 12 knots and reaching up to 18 during the last leg of racing. The cloudy sky intimidated in the first race but left space to a sunny weather in last leg and permitted the Race Committee to complete 5 races in this first day of competition.

All classes raced with the fleet of 51 boats taking to the course prepared by the Race Committee in the waters in front of Capri. A windward-leeward course of 8 nautical miles was prepared for the Farr 40s and Swan 45s, while an initially 13.5 mile course was later reduced to 10 and set the stage for the Comet S and Mini Maxi regatta.

The Farr 40, with 16 entries, provided plenty of action with very close racing in the three windward-leeward races with disputed and close spectacular starts. Australian Lang Walker's Kokomo with Colin Beashel calling tactics led today's racing with two consecutive victories in the first races and a fifth place in the last, giving them an overall first place in the temporary ranking. Jim Richardson, in his Barking Mad (USA) with 2005 Volvo Ocean Race skipper Bouwe Bekking calling tactics, got second overall with a good performance today in two out of the three races. Italian favorite Massimo Mezzaroma's Nerone - who looks to establish a healthy score line in these 4 regatta days which represent the fist leg of the Farr 40 European Circuit - concluded the day with a first place in the third regatta, but fell behind the leaders with a 7th place and 17th place taken in the first two races. For the Swan 45s today's racing acted as warm up racing and did not count for the Swan 45 World Mediterranean Circuit, as the Rolex Capri Sailing week is an official leg of it. Looking forward to the arrival of all the Swans entries for the Rolex Capri Sailing Week, who were also enrolled in a previous event in Portofino, the real racing will start tomorrow even if today's races set as a perfect text for the 15 who had already arrived. Among the Mini Maxis, Italian OPS 5 - a Baltic 60 owned by Violati Massimo, member of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda - led the 7 craft fleet in today's 10 miles course and took first place. Comet 45s Libertine won in it's class in today's regatta followed by Roberto Franchella's Aria Tx Active.

ISAF Sailing World Cup

The ISAF Sailing World Cup has been in the planning for several years, and in November 2006, ISAF approved the initial six events and the overview event concept, with the ISAF Executive Committee charged to finalize details. The objective of the ISAF Sailing World Cup is to provide a clear competition structure for Olympic sailing and enhance Olympic sailing for the competitors, provide a media and marketing tool to benefit sponsors, event organizers, the sailors and the sport, and to promote and educate people about sailing. In November 2006, ISAF approved that a series of events will combine under the umbrella of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, with the subject to contract the initial events being:

Sail Melbourne

Rolex Miami OCR

Princess Sofia Trophy

Semaine Olympique Française

Holland Regatta

Kiel Week

The ISAF Sailing World Cup will kick off in 2008 and ISAF has been working in partnership with the event organizers to finalize details of the concept and calendar scheduling. A consistent approach will be taken not only on the competition format across the World Cup events, but also on media activities, marketing and the event brand. As part of their commitment to the World Cup, each event organizer will be required to contribute towards TV production, to an amount which will be matched by ISAF and put in entirety towards the television production and distribution. From 2009 onwards, the scheduling of Sail Melbourne and Rolex Miami OCR will be moved to enable competitors to compete in both events, with Sail Melbourne during the second week of January and Rolex Miami OCR during the second week of February.

A sailor’s finishing place at each individual event in the World Cup series will count towards his ISAF Sailing World Cup score, using a high point scoring system and no discard. The intention is to also count results from the individual Olympic Class World Championships within the World Cup scoring. However, as at the moment Kiel Week is the last event in the World Cup series, World Championships will need to have concluded prior to Kiel in order to be included. From 2010 onwards, ISAF plans to introduce a Grand Final which will take place in the months after Kiel Week and see the top sailors from the series in a 'head to head' Grand Final at a venue which will be moved around the world each year. ISAF also intends to add additional non-European events to the World Cup series in the coming years, with an initial focus on an event in Asia. ISAF will publish a separate update on the launch of the ISAF Sailing World Cup.