Saturday, February 24, 2018

Italy J/24 Winter Series Championship Report

J/24 sailing off ItalyPELLE NERA Leading Series, NUVOLA Atop Trofeo Lozzi Regatta
(Anzio-Nettuno, Italy)- The 43rd Winter Championship of Anzio-Nettuno is off to a great start for the Roman J/24 fleet in Italy.  After two full weekends of sailing, the weather has cooperated beyond anyone’s expectations, producing eleven races for the Winter Series and seven races for the Trofeo Lozzi Memorial Trophy series.

Winter Series
In the winter series, it is Paolo Cecamore’s crew on PELLE NERA that is benefitting from having the Hungarian Farkas Litkey at the helm; Litkey is a former Soling World Champion- a bit like throwing a wolf amongst the innocent little lambs! The team is sailing fast and smart and has posted nine top three finishes, including five bullets for a total of 15 pts net!

Climbing the standings quickly in the series has been none other than perhaps the most famous Italian J/24 sailor in recent history.  Ignazio Bonanno’s LA SUPERBA is now renamed NUVOLA and instead of sailing for the Italian Navy College, he is racing for the Centro Sportivo Agonistic.  While having bad luck in the first three races (a DNC-20-DNC), they can now throw out two bad scores.  The NUVOLA team now has eight scores in the top three, with four bullets and are sitting on 34 pts net.  Things could get interesting very fast if their consistency over the next two weekends begins to force PELLE NERA’s hand. NUVOLA has the best record in the last five races by far with a 1-1-1-2-2.

Sitting in third for the series is Gianni Riccobono’s PELLE ROSSA from the host Nettuno YC.  They, too, had a rough start in the first weekend.  However, since then, they have managed to pop scores like a 1-2-3-3 in the last seven races to swiftly race up the standings.  They now sit just two pts back from NUVOLA, with just 36 pts net.

Trofeo Lozzi
This event is in commemoration of a long-time J/24 aficionado in Italy- Sr Lozzi- that passed away at far too early an age.  Currently, the team leading this series is also a past winning skipper- Ignazio Bonanno.  He is now skippering NUVOLA and, after not sailing the first two races, they have posted five straight bullets to be winning by 1.5 pts after a throw-out.  Sitting in second place is Luca Silvestri’s ENJOY 2 for 24 pts net; third is Marco D’Alosio’s DON J with 25 pts net; fourth is Paolo Cecamore’s PELLE NERA with 33 pts net; and rounding out the top five is Fabrizio Sabatini’s DAIQUIRI with 43 pts net.  For more Italian J/24 class sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.