ADESSO VELA

Si è concusa venerdì scorso la Bacardi Cup, regata che piacerebbe fare a tutti per molteplici ragioni. A partire dalle barche, le signore delle classi olimpiche, le Star, e poi partecipanti prestigiosi, accoglienza eccezionale, lunga storia - nasce nel 1927 a Cuba come Cup of Cuba - e, non ultimo, lo sponsor, che offre litri di RON...
Tanto prestigiosa che il baffo più famoso d'Italia, dopo mesi di riposo nella sua Frisco, s'è fatto il Paese in macchina guidando dalla California del nord fino alla Bay of Biscane per prender parte con il suo prodiere storico alla Bacardi Cup. Qui sotto il suo racconto dell'ultimo giorno di regate. Il signor Cayard, senza essere allenato, ha fatto 5...ditemi se non il velista più eclettico di tutti i tempi?! Ottimo lavoro Paolo Caiardini!

Paul Cayard

Friday, March 13, 2009

Another perfect day, 78 degrees, 10 knots of wind from the southeast. We did have a big cloud come over the course today and kill the wind for a while on the second windward leg but, I don't think it shuffled the results too much.
We were convinced about the right side of the course today so we started up by the right handside of the line and tacked shortly after the start. That was wrong. We were deep all day! At this moment I am not even sure where we finished but it may have been 30th. It doesn't really matter because thankfully all those "mediocre" finishes we had all week look pretty good right now as we will count an 11th and can discard today's finish.

Peter Bromby and Magnus Liljedahl won the race and the Bacardi Cup. They sailed really well all week. Mark Medleblatt/Bruno Prada also sailed well today and finished second overall. John VanderMollen who had been second most of the week had an even worse race than us today, so we may have passed him. The Irish were over early at the start. They were just to windward of us so we were a bit lucky there but again, it wouldn't have mattered. Rick Merriman and Phil Trinter (USA) sailed a solid second half of the series to finish 3rd with Flavio Marazzi (SUI) just one point behind them in 4th. I think we were 5th but I have not seen the scores. If so, I am pretty happy with that considering my rust.

It was a lot of fun sailing the Star again and sailing with Austin. I think it is doing me some good too. Even though today was our worst score I feel so much more comfortable in the boat than I did a week ago.

We will race again in two weeks in Mississippi for the Western Hemisphere Championship.

Tomorrow Austin and I will drive the boat and truck to Gulfport, Mississippi.

Thanks for following us this week.

Top 10 Boats

Place Skipper Crew
1 Bromby Peter Liljedahl Magnus 6.0 [AVG] 2.0 2.0 1.0 24.0 1.0 12
2 Mendelblatt Mark PRADA BRUNO 3.0 23.0 1.0 10.0 3.0 2.0 19
3 Merriman Rick Sharp Brian 6.0 44.0 7.0 6.0 12.0 8.0 39
4 Marazzi Flavio Pedersen Petter 65.0 [OCS] 12.0 13.0 3.0 5.0 7.0 40
5 Cayard Paul Sperry Austin 11.0 10.0 8.0 5.0 11.0 24.0 45
6 Vandermolen Jon Ewenson Geoff 2.0 16.0 6.0 2.0 20.0 30.0 46
7 Wright Peter Quist Nathan 13.0 3.0 19.0 13.0 13.0 10.0 52
8 Macdonald Andy Fatih Brian 65.0 [DNF] 13.0 3.0 11.0 8.0 18.0 53
9 Pickel Marc Mitchell Steve 5.0 26.0 45.0 8.0 2.0 14.0 55
10 O'Leary Peter Goodbody Tim 4.0 29.0 17.0 4.0 4.0 65.0 [OCS] 58

ps.sì, gli italiani c'erano, ma no, non hanno chiuso nei primi 10...
Luca Modena - Sergio Lambertenghi 14 Lucio Boggi - Manuele LaPorta (vincitori della seconda prova) 22 Irrera-Cristaldini 35 Barovier-Nobili 44 Tamburini-Ricci 49