(Santander, Spain)- After a break at the end of the summer, the Spanish
J/80 teams are at it again, sailing their fall and winter series on both
the chilly Bay of Biscay on Spain's northern Cantabrian coastline and
the warm, sunny, southern climates along the southern coastlines in the
Mediterranean. Off Santander, twenty-eight teams congregated to sail for the honors of the coveted Trofeo A&G Private Banking. Top Spanish J/80 sailors, Jaime Piris (FONESTAR) and David Madrazo (GO FIT), shared the wins in the two days of racing sailed on a "spring-like" weekend. The J/80 class returned to enjoy a weekend of excellent afternoon racing in the Open Sardinero with spring weather and a fairly steady northeast wind of 8 knots. The races were very exciting, with many options and opportunities for different parts of the course to gain and lose. However, it seemed that the northern part of the course farthest from land paid over the parts on the downwind legs.
The day opened with two strong candidates to win the Trofeo A&G Private Banking, which were Pichu Torcida's ECC VIVIENDAS and Dave Madrazo's GO FIT, separated by only 2 points. The first race of the day proved to be a determining factor in the series. While FONESTAR's Jaime Piris won and MAQUECHE's Alfonso Pascual and Iñaki Samaniego finished second, it was GO FIT's Madrazo who had a fierce fight to beat OPTICA CENTRALE for third place to retain a slim one point lead going into the last race over Torcida's ECC VIVIENDAS.
For the final race of the weekend and the series, it was going to be a big battle between GO FIT and ECC VIVIENDAS. In the end, GO FIT maintained control of the race and took the final race to become the overall winner after eight races. It was quite an accomplishment for Madrazo to win over Pichu Torcida, a two-time J/80 World Champion! Behind these two, the rest of the top five included third- LUPA (Obregon), fourth- BANCAJA (Lopez-Vazquez) and fifth- MAQUECHE (Pascual). For more Spanish J/80 sailing information
