Provisional Results

Class A – Big Boat Division Race 3 1 Brava Q8 P. Landolfi (ITA)
2 Okyalos X Y. Costopoulos (GRE)
3 Castellon Costa Azahar V. Tirado Jimenez (ESP)

Overall
1 Brava Q8 P. Landolfi (ITA) 26.50
2 Innovision 7 H. Eekhof (NED) 23.25
3 Okyalos X Y. Costopoulos (GRE) 17.00

Class B – Middle Boat Division
Race 3
1 Struntje Light W. Schafer (GER)
2 Silver Age P. Mortari (ITA)
3 Winterthur Yah Man V. Rava (ITA)

Overall
1 Winterthur Yah Man V. Rava (ITA) 28.50
2 Struntje Light W. Schafer (GER) 27.25
3 Silver Age P. Mortari (ITA) 25.00

Class C – Small Boat Division
Race 3
1 Drake R. Marinuzzi Ronconi (ITA)
2 Malinda Blue Star A. Masi (ITA)
3 Amelie Projet M.G. Besio (UKR)

Overall
1 Drake R. Marinuzzi Ronconi (ITA) 16.50
2 Malinda Clarion A. Masi (ITA) 15.25
3 Moby Lines 30 P. Parente (ITA) 11.00

The Inside Story – Low Pressure Torment

The first of the Rolex IMS Offshore World Championship fleet, the ILC Maxi Alexia, completed the one hundred and twenty mile offshore course at 05.21 this morning. Alberto Roemmers’ boat was only fifty minutes ahead of the Judel/Vrolijk 49, Yannis Costopoulos’ Okyalos X. It was an excellent performance from the Greek team that secured them second place in the division. But the honours went to Pasquale Landolfi’s Brava, just over a minute behind Okyalos X, and correcting out to a two and a half minute win. But as the rest of the division poured over the line behind Brava – last to finish Merit Cup was only thirteen minutes astern – Alexia found themselves relegated to seventh place. It was an impressive comeback from the Brava team, who pulled it out of the bag in the last few miles, after an indifferent start allowed rivals Innovision 7 to get a jump on them.

Chris Larson, Brava Q8’s tactician, commented that, ‘It was a race of landmines. A race of patience. We stuck with it, tried to keep within striking distance. And we were lucky that when we went into the final parking lot, we came out on the fortunate end of it.’ Innovision’s Dee Smith was disappointed, ‘We had the good start and first beat, it was all looking good. It was late on when Brava Q8 got back into it … they got almost all their time in just a couple of miles … got the pressure when we didn’t and were almost a mile ahead by the time we got to the final rounding mark.’

Conditions always made a comeback possible – this race was anything except a straight-line boatspeed test. The centre of a low pressure system has been drifting roughly west to east, across the race course, in the last twenty four hours. With the winds circulating tightly around the centre in an anti-clockwise direction, a small movement of the fleet relative to the low pressure system, meant big changes in wind direction. Get to the north of the centre and there are easterly winds, get to the south of the centre and there are westerly’s. Unfortunately, it hasn’t even been that simple. Into the mix has gone the frontal activity that generated yesterday’s venomous squall, and the complex land and thermal effects that the Costa Smeralda’s pretty, but elaborate, coastline produces. Ian Moore, navigator aboard Winterthur Yah-Man, commented, ‘We’ve had wind from every conceivable direction, from forty knots to two knots. Every single sail has been up, all the kites, wind-seeker, jib-top – the lot.’

In such con