43rd Copa del Rey MAPFRE
It is the final day of the ORC European Championships and the titles are on the line. Of the four classes only Dave Team’s American crew on Vesper have a good lead in ABANCA ORC 0 and a useful fifth place as a discard in their back pocket.
The Brasilian crew on second placed Crioula are ruing their DNF in race one. They will, as usual, go out and fight and try to close their deficit on the US boat but it is a big ask. Their navigator Ricardo Costa said this morning “The winds will be very similar to the last two days, maybe a little lighter for us on Bravo course but we should see between eight and ten knots. We are very happy with the boat it is super fast and if we are not making mistakes we can do well. But with just one discard we are hurt a lot by our first day when we broke the main halyard. We need two good races today but I think Vesper are comfortable for the win, it is going to be hard to catch them but we would be happy with second.”
Otherwise the other three classes are very open. Closest of all is Uber ORC C where there is just half a point separating the long time leader Early Bird helmed by Germany’s ClubSwan 50 world champion Hendrik Brandis from the Spanish Vrolijk 37 Nunota Cafiver Sailing Team which is very much on the ascendancy. In Ubico ORC B Guardimago, the Italia Yachts 11.98 of Massimo Piparo is one point up on the Estonian X41 Technonicol, skippered by Mati Sepp. All of the top three boats have no margin for error at all as they all have a weighty discard.
Eight points separate the top five boats in Sail Racing ORC A after seven races. Pedro Vaquer’s ClubSwan 42 Nadir goes out to try and land the championship title with a lead of just one point but the local owner remarked yesterday how hard it is for the smaller 42 footers to race in the pack when the two faster DK 46s have the speed to get out in front out of the traffic. It is going to be a great finale.
There has been a change to the final day schedule for the Balearia Women’s Cup. Yesterday one of the six boats was damaged and is no longer sailable. So the fleet is reduced to just five for the final day. The plan will be to get the amended qualifying phase completed for 2pm with the same number of races sailed by each team. The five highest-ranked teams will compete in the Final Series, consisting of three races, with 1 point awarded to the winner, 2.25 to the runner-up, 3.5 to third place, 4.75 to fourth place and 6 to fifth place. The team with the lowest score at the end of the series will be the champions of the 43rd Copa del Rey MAPFRE.
