Sunday´s weather is another story and for those who choose to sail the Melges 24 it was real adrenaline.
The conditions were for the Race Committee extreme difficulty to set the course. The fleet had one general recall, but the second try everything was perfect at the start line.
Flavio Favini and his crew were from the very first steps on top of the fleet and extended their lead in these super conditions. "The entire crew were protagonists of a wonderful week. Good with light winds in recent days, very well today with strong winds. Good attitude, speed, excellent maneuvers, leadership, tactics ... impeccable in every section. We had some concerns about recent new crew members Matteo Ivaldi and Luca Faravelli. They immediately proved to be two great sailors who especially adapted to the boat. And have established a good feeling with the rest of the crew. Our budget is absolutely positive towards the training and we are preparing the boat with new sails North Sails" says Tiziano Nava, coach of Blue Moon. Our fleet´s number one star "Lenny" EST 790 helmed by Tõnu Tõniste were beaten by the Italian "Hurricane" ITA 727 helmed by Alberto Bolzan with tactician Daniele Cassinari. Daniele commented: "A great race. The boat was extremely hard to keep in hand in these super conditions. Congratulations to Flavio who really deserve win, because he used all my sails (North Sails). For what concerns us, we had some difficul days during the starts but we are working to develop things in view of the Italian Champs in Alghero and the World of Tallinn."
The strong Swiss and Italian professional fleet had a hard time keeping the best corinthian team behind. On board "Lenny" EST 790 helmed by Tõnu Tõniste had a excellent weekend with 5th, 2nd, 15th, 26th, 6th and 6th placing. This gave them with one discard a total of 34 points. Lenny will be really hard to beat on home waters in early August during the Worlds. Best Finnish team was FIN645 "Suunto" helmed by Freddy Markelin having trained at Scarlino for 3½ days prior to the event. Their overall result 16th (28,9,20,20,17,64) was fantastic giving them a good kick start to the season. Second best team FIN742 "Betfair pwd by Flow" helmed by Tomi Hakola had a excellent result under the team from San Remo (Volvo Cup 1). Two bad starts destroyed their overall result. Overall a 30th (49,11,13,54,26,23) is good to continue. Third from the strong six boat Finnish team was FIN 651 "Lumi" helmed by Kristian Raij had a good weekend ending up 40th (DNC,49,22,24,8,DNF). FIN529 Midnight Sun Sailing helmed by Sami Ekblad was 40th (54,23,49,27,57,19) FIN670 Team JJ helmed by Jorma Kinnunen was 57th (56,60,47,38,41,DNF) FIN425 Makia helmed by Matias Seppovaara was 59th (52,61,58,53,50,43) FULL RESULT PICTURES by Pierrick Contin day1 day2 day3 VIDEOS by MediaVip NOTE: The Finnish season will start one month from now - keep tuned. The NORs and online entry systems are now open for the first two events, see "upcoming events" |