Patience rewarded at ORC World Championship

Trieste, Italy (July 7, 2017) – The light air continued yet again today on the Gulf of Trieste for the ORC Worlds Trieste 2017, but a scheduled delay allowed race managers to have the fleet wait and enjoy some time ashore before getting them out to the course area in the afternoon when the seabreeze finally filled to a sailable 7-10 knots.

In this one race for all three classes the usual suspects were in the top ranks, continuing to show their prowess in speed, crew work and tactics that has earned them these positions amid a tough world championship fleet. The positions on the leaderboard are important now, because if there is only one race tomorrow there will be a discard and possible re-shuffling of results to determine the final podium winners in each class.

In Class A, the leader from the very first day of racing – Maurizio Poser’s Swan 42 Sheraa Yacht Club Hannibal – finally slipped out of the top 5, earning an 8th in Race 6 to allow the pack to start to close the gap, which is down to only 3 points now with Sandro Paniccia’s Scuderia 50 Altair 3 in the runner-up position on the strength of having own today’s race, their first win of the series. Only one point back is Vincenzo Onorato’s Cookson 50 Mascalzone Latino, and only 2 points behind her the reigning World Champion in this class, Vadim Yakimenko’s Russo-French team on their TP 52 Freccia Rossa.

There is a 12-point gap between these four top teams and the 5th place entry, so its likely our podium finishers tomorrow will be from among these top four. This will not be easy because the racing is extremely tight: the top four places in Race 6 today were only 52 seconds apart in corrected time after an hour and 20 minutes of racing.

Similarly in Class B the series leader – Diego Zanco’s Croatian team on the X-41 Nube – also had their worst race today to earn 6 points, but then they also have a larger 14 point cushion to runners-up Selene Alifax, a Swan 42 owned by Massimo De Campo. In third now is another Swan 42, Be Wild, only one point behind Selene and only three points ahead of Horus Tempus Fugit, Nadia Canalez’s M45. So as the discards start to come into play, this class could very well get re-ordered for the podium positions.

Class C is turning out to be very interesting, as the series leader – Alessio Querin’s Farr 30 Mummy One-Lab Met, got knocked off their perch at the top by Giacomo and Franco Loro Piana’s fellow Farr 30 Sease with a 14th finish today. With a discard of course, this goes away, because they are now only 0.5 points off the lead.

In this class today a newcomer came into the winner’s circle – Gianluigi Dubbini’s Italia Yachts 9.98 Sarchiapone Flouriserie – earning a first place, the only one so far among Corinthian entries.

Racing resumes tomorrow in the final day of competition at the ORC Worlds Trieste 2017, with new champions crowned in all three classes and Corinthian winners in each class recognized as well.

Event details – Results – Tracking – Live streaming – Photos

Source: Dobbs Davis