(Malcesine, Italy)- The Fraglia Vela Malcesine hosted the 2018 edition
of the Campionato J/70 Nazionale Italiano on the spectacular waters of
Lago di Garda, Italy. Enough said. The truly fabulous sailing
conditions experienced every summer on the famous “wind machine” known
simply as “Garda” is worth the millions of spectacular photographs you
may have seen over the course of several decades. In this case, it was a
truly spectacular long weekend of sailing for the nine races sailed by
seventy-five entries from fourteen nations- Austria (3), France (1),
Great Britain (1), Germany (8), Italy (34), Malta (1), Monaco (4),
Poland (3), Russia (7), Switzerland (11), Sweden (1), Turkey (1), and
the “foreigners” from offshore- USA (1) and Brazil (1).
It
was incredibly close, tight racing throughout the championship.
Nevertheless, consistency was critical and avoiding any “death traps”
getting caught outside of a group of boats and not being able to tack to
the favored side of the course. In the end, it was Gianfranco Noe’s
crew on CALVI NETWORK that won by the comfortable margin of 11 pts, with
45 pts net after nine races. In such a tight, deeply talented fleet,
their performance was quite remarkable, other than a 5th race BFD,
posting seven top 10 scores… no one else was even close to such
consistency.A long-time J/Owner over the course of time, Vincenzo Onorato, has sailed J/24s and a J/39 in his passion for sailing that has carried over into Melges 32 and Farr 40 World Championships. However, J/70 success has proved elusive for Vincenzo. The simpler the boat, the harder it is to win. So, along comes a nice guy named Paul Goodison (who’s C.V. is not bad in the world of sailing), and with a little bit of training, they are working a bit of magic! For a long-time supporter of yachting in Italy and someone who loves one-design racing, it was gratifying for Vincenzo and crew to enjoy their best performance to date in the J/70 class. Starting off with a 3-2-16-1, the goal was to stay out of trouble and sail fast! Indeed, despite some issues in races 5 & 6, they closed with an amazing 3-7-4 to take the silver.
The
Princess of Italian J/70 sailing is undeniably PETITE TERRIBLE’s
Claudia Rossi. After two European Championships, her team is
consistently at the top of their game and always in contention at the
top of the leaderboard. After a strong start of 5-3-9, a BFD-21
torpedoed their bid for the Italian National Championship.
Nevertheless, her team of Michele Paoletti, Simone Spangaro, Matteo
Mason and Gaia Ciacchi are still, by far, the most consistent Italian
team. Rounding out the top five were Luca Domenici’s NOTARO TEAM in 4th
and Tommaso Pavan’s VIVA team in 5th place. For more Italian J/70 Class sailing information
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