(Santander, Spain)- The fifth edition of the J/80 Championship of Spain
was quite the epic affair. Multiple J/80 World Champions and Olympic
Medallists dueling for the honor being the top one-design keelboat
sailor in a country that has produced an extraordinary number of
champions in sailing over the last decade.
The
host was the renowned Real Club Marítimo de Santander, hosting the
forty-five teams in the same venue that had a 100+ boat fleet sail the
J/80 Worlds a few years earlier. After the first day of racing, the
current World Champion, Pichu Torcida with ECC VIVIENDAS was leading.
Interestingly, a recent Around World sailor, Tonio Piris was second on
GO-FIT/ YATES & COSAS, proving he had not lost his touch sailing
J/80s after being on a 60 foot IMOCA boat for a few months. And third
Tono Gorostegui with CINCO SOLUCIONES. Fourth was Carlos Martinez on
MAPFRE and fifth was Toni's brother Jaime Piris on FONESTAR!By the last day of sailing the Cantabrian team (pictued above) of Jaime Piris, Alfredo Portilla, Bryan Lopez and Jesus Gonzalez, with his boat FONESTAR overtook all their famous, highly decorated competitors and were crowned the new champions of Spain in the J/80 class due to their remarkably consistent scores over the three day event. The leader of the first two days, Pichu Torcida's ECC VIVIENDAS had to settle for second place overall with Jose Maria van der Ploeg finishing third on GREAT SAILING. Ignacio Caminos had to drop to fourth on NEXTEL ENGINEERING and Tonio Piris finished a very respectable fifth on GO-FIT/ YATES & COSAS. Sailing photo credits- RCMS For more J/80 Spanish Championships sailing information
Perhaps
one of the best outcomes of the event was the "media publishing" by
friends of the J/80 fleet. You can check out each day's video summary
here in these links:Day 1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLj0-l11y4
Day 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOxt2TJ94GQ
Day 3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggvQdA-VfZk
