Close racing for 5.5 Metres as Alpen Cup begins at Riva

Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli- Saether, Anders Pedersen) leads the 5.5 Metre Alpen Cup at Riva after three tough and close races on Thursday in a 15-20 knot Ora. Aspire (POL 17, Przemek Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) is on equal points in second with Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian Wilhelmsen, Lasse Berthelsen, Herve Cunningham) in third. After Marie-Françoise XXII (SUI 233, Jurg Menzi, Jurgen Eiermann, Kim Chabani) won the opening race by a huge margin, Aspire and then Artemis took the remaining races.

Hosted by Fraglia dela Riva for the third year running, the fleet of 12 teams from eight countries were treated to perfect Garda conditions after a week of colder and unsettled weather on the lake. A building Ora through the early afternoon with clear skies and rising temperatures made for a fantastic opening day.

With the course set on the Torbole side, many thought the left was favoured, but those who went right made big gains. In the first race Marie-Françoise XXII went all the way right and rounded with a huge lead that was never going to be beaten. Enez c'las (FRA 63, Yann Delabriere, Nicolas Abiven, Sylvie Delabriere) rounded second, but by the gate Artemis was up to second, while Shaolin (SUI 226, Flavio Marazzi, Andreas Kindlimann, Hans von Werdt) moved up to third.

By now everyone had the measure of the conditions and the boat ended was crowded to get across to the left. This time, Aspire made the best of the start to lead round the whole race to win from Shaolin and Otto. Unfortunately, Shaolin only just made it round and had to return to shore to effect repairs to the forestay and missed the final race.

Artemis led Race 3 all the way, but was pushed very hard by Aspire, Otto and MELX III (GRE 5, Stavros Papagiannopoulos, Christoph Burger, Panagiotis Kambouridis), who sailed a great race.

Kusznierewicz commented, “We really enjoyed the day, it was the Garda at its best. Beautiful three races. Actually, the first one was interesting because most of the fleet didn't do what we should do, and actually only one boat just sailed a perfect race and we couldn't see who was it, there was such a distance in between us and Menzi and his team.

“We like it here and actually from the first race to the last one, from the beginning to the end, we improved, so we like it. Nothing else to add, it's very close sailing and we are happy with the day, finishing 4, 1, and 2. So, I think we should be happy.”

Nergaard said, “Nice wind. We probably had up to 20 knots, between 15 up max 20 knots. Beautiful day, but the start of the season, and we all get tired after a day like this, but getting into the routines and doing the drills, and that takes a lot of time.”

“I think we had a good day, we had two good starts, and we're up there in the first beat. Our second race, we were struggling a little bit with the manoeuvres, and we were almost fishing out there with a kite, but we managed to get it out of the water and survived that one.

“And then in the last race, we had a pretty good start and was fighting all the way to the end and won that. So, we're quite happy with today.

“And Garda is what it all: sunny, beautiful, and nice weather. So, we're looking forward to tomorrow.”

Three more races are scheduled for Friday. The event concludes on Saturday.

Results after 3 races:

1 Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli- Saether, Anders Pedersen) 7
2 Aspire (POL 17, Przemek Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) 7
3 Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian Wilhelmsen, Lasse erthelsen, Herve Cunningham) 12
4 Marie-Françoise XXII (SUI 233, Jurg Menzi, Jurgen Eiermann, Kim Chabani) 14
5 John B (BAH 24 Kristoffer Spone, Mathias Dahlman, Lars Horn Johannessen) 15