Club Velico Crotone Tops Italian U-19 J/70 Sailing League

(Crotone, Italy)- On October 30, the Kick-off for the Club Under 19 Championship, the junior version of the Legavela Championship, took place at Crotone and also hosted by Club Velico Crotone. The program for the seven competing teams included a full day of training on Monday by Italy’s top J/70 sailors for the youth teams.  Then, the teams sailed a round-robin format of racing over two days, just like the adult sailing league.  This is the report on how it all took place.

Day 1
Fifteen races were sailed in over 12 knots on the first day. The young sailors aboard the new J/70 one-design sailboats welcomed the Legavela format with great enthusiasm and had a true battle in fifteen races.

At the top of the leaderboard after the first day were the hosts of the Velico Crotone Club (captain Matteo Verri, skipper Demetrio Sposato, Gaia Verri, Mattia La Greca, and Beatrice Sposato), thanks to winning seven of fifteen races, they had a 40 pt lead. Sitting in second with 55 pts was Centro Velico 3V (captain Alessandro Franzì, skipper Riccardo Sepe, Gabriele Centrone, Alice Tamburini, and Paolo Iacchia).  Then, sitting in third with 60 pts was Societa Velica di Barcola e Grignano (captain/skipper Maria Vittoria Marchesini, Matthias Menis, Zeno Tarlao, Alice Linussi, and Nicolas Starc).

Day 2
On the race course, the Club Velico Crotone youth crew repeated their excellent performance on the first day. Comfortable with the sustained strong winds, they kept the results constant- mostly first places! As a result, the CVC youth U-19 team won the first Italian U-19 J/70 kick-off sailing league event.

Ironically, despite the ups and downs on the results ladder, the top three teams did not change at the conclusion of the regatta.  Second was Centro Velico 3V and holding on to third place was Societa Velica di Barcola e Grignano.

"We are excited about this event, which closes a great week of sailing, beautifully organized by Club Velico Crotone," said the executive vice president of LIV Alessandro Maria Rinaldi. “The young sailors have done their best and have proven to be perfectly capable of handling the J/70s in the sailing league format. The experiment has been successful, and now we are ready to build a circuit for next season, dedicated to mature young people rising to the top of Italian sailing."   Follow the Italian U-19 J/70 Sailing League on Facebook here   For more Italian J/70 Sailing League information Add to Flipboard Magazine.