PETITE TERRIBLE Wins Alcatel J/70 Cup Act III

(Riva del Garda, Italy)- The second Lake Garda event for the ALCATEL J/70 CUP saw three days of the famous Lake Garda “wind machine” produce seven races over the three days for the record-setting fleet of seventy-three boats.  As expected, the host club, Fraglia Vela Riva, with its Regatta Committee chaired by Fabrizio Donato with PRO Fausto Maroni, provided the world championship caliber fleet excellent race management over the weekend.

After a thrilling first two days of racing, where the top of the leaderboard was largely left wide open, it was the solid, consistent performance of Claudia Rossi’s Italian crew on PETITE TERRIBLE- ADRIA FERRIES that won their second regatta in a row in almost as many weekends!  Coming off their J/70 Europeans win on the Solent in England, no one expected them to maintain such a high-level of performance.  Nevertheless, after bracketing her record with two bullets, Claudia’s team won easily with a 1-6-2-2-7-1 tally for 18 pts!  Here is how it all came about on one of the most famous northern Italian lakes for sailing.

Day One- A sparkling first day on Garda
It was a typical Lake Garda afternoon; starting after lunch, the wind quickly increased to 20 knots, and then slowly fell away by late evening.  Winning the first race fresh from her win at the J/70 Europeans was Rossi’s PETITE TERRIBLE.  Winning the second race was Carlo Alberini’s CALVI NETWORK, the winner of the previous two ALCATEL J/70 CUP events in San Remo and Malcesine. At the end of the day, CALVI NETWORK was leading with a 4-1; with Rossi in second with a 1-6, and third were the 2014 J/70 Europeans Champions, Luca Dominica’s NOTARO TEAM.

"We were delighted and excited to go back to Italy after winning the title of European champions in the waters of Hamble for the second time.  We knew it would be a great challenge, a sort of small preview of the September World Cup, with the fleet growing more and more. Winning the first race today was a nice confidence builder: we still have many things to work on, but we hope to do well in the rest of the series," said Claudia Rossi.

Another great performance on the day was by MASCALZONE LATINO, sailed by Vincenzo Onorato, they managed a 14-5 to sit in eight place in the provisional rankings.

The challenge for the twenty-seven boat Corinthian fleet was how to beat Alessandro Zampori’s MAGIE DAS SAILING TEAM with their amazing performance of a 16-3 and holding on to 6th place in the Open rankings! A good distance back was Gianfranco Noè’s WHITE HAWK, the winner of the Sanremo and Malcesine Corinthians Division.  Sitting third after day one was Alessio Zucchi’s WHY NOT.

Day Two- The Garda Wind Factory Produces More!
The second day was similar to the first day, same breeze, same direction, sunny and the PRO managed to throw in three races for the tired crews!

The winner of the first race of the day was none other than a top Corinthians team, Gianfranco Noe’s WHITE HAWK!  They were followed by fleet leaders PETITE TERRIBLE and CALVI NETWORK.  In the second race, the top two teams flip-flopped positions, with Alberini topping Rossi’s crew with Vincenzo Onorato’s MASCALZONE LATINO taking third (his best race of the series)!  In the final race of the day, it was Umberto de Luca’s ENJOY 1.0 that won, followed by Alessandro Molla’s VIVA in second and Stefano Roberti’s PICCININA from YC Monaco in third!

At the end of the day, the overall leaderboard remained unchanged, with CALVI NETWORK maintaining leadership with a margin of two points over PETITE TERRIBLE- ADRIA FERRIES. Mollas’ VIVA had such a good day (6-4-2) that they leapt up to third overall, about nine points margin over Jose Maria “Pichu” Torcida’ and Luis Martin Cabiedes’ NOTICIA- the current J/70 European Vice champion from Spain.

Day Three- Thrilling Finale!
The third and final day started later than expected due to weather early in the morning, that delayed the start of the Garda “wind machine”.  As a result, only two races were sailed and they produced dramatic swings in the overall standings based on the fact that teams could now discard one race for their overall net point totals.

Winning the first race was Rossi’s PETITE TERRIBLE, while their nemesis, Alberini’s CALVI NETWORK, tanked the race and scored a 26th to add to their 23rd in the fifth race; effectively taking themselves out contention for the regatta win.  Second in the race was Luca Domenici’s NOTARO TEAM and third was the best finish yet for top Polish sailor Krzysztof Krempec’s POLONIA.  The finale produced yet more drama for, literally, all teams in the top ten.  Winning was CALVI NETWORK, followed by De Luca’s ENJOY 1.0 in second and the Brazilian Mauricio Santa Cruz’s team on MANDA CHUVA took third.

As a result of the wild swings in the races on the last day, the leaderboard saw a significant shuffling of positions, the proverbial game of snakes and ladders!  In the end, Rossi’s PETITE TERRIBLE won with 18 pts net, followed by Alberini’s CALVI NETWORK taking the silver with 33 pts net, and Mauro Roversi’s J-CURVE taking the bronze (perhaps they won the “Mr Consistency Reward”- his last four races were all 8ths!).  Rounding out the top five was a tiebreaker on 53 pts each between Domenici’s NOTARO TEAM and Mauro Mocchegiani’s RUSH DILETTA 2.0, finishing 4th and 5th, respectively.

The battle in the Corinthians Division was at best frenetic, at worst incredibly anxious for all the top teams.  The most consistent was Noe’s WHITE HAWK, ultimately closing out with 77 pts to win by a large margin.  Taking the silver was Zampori’s MAGGIE DAS SAILING TEAM with 131 pts. Rounding out the podium was Stefan Seger’s Swiss crew on JURMO with 140 pts.  The balance of the top five was comprised of Marco Shirato’s JAWS TOO in fourth and Alessio Zucchi’s WHY NOT in fifth place.  For more Alcatel J/70 Cup sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.