Lighter than usual. Alegre step closer to Soriano's Copa del Rey triple crown

Light airs continue to prevail at 36 Copa del Rey MAPFRE on the Bay of Palma where only one race was sailed today for many of the monohull classes. Four divisions now have new leaders including Mallorca Sotheby’s IRC Class 1 where Andy Soriano’s TP52 Alegre stepped two points clear of a 16 strong division which contains ten TP52s of differing design ages.

Andres Soriano is keen to complete his third win in three different boats and classes at the Copa del Rey after triumphing in the Soto 40 class in 2012 and the Mini Maxi in 2013. Today they finished second behind the Marseille crew on Alizée who became the third different TP52 crew to win a race after six starts. The crew from the south of France which sails the former Paprec Recyclage have a young core team which are enjoying the benefits of Alizée’s initiative to bring on more young, local ex Olympic classes sailors or match racers.
“ We are working a lot here, and today it was really good, with a good start. We have a very young crew and they are so very motivated. We have people from 16-25 and they sail with sailors with more experience. It is working very well and there is a good atmosphere on board.” Said tactician Laurent Camprubi an ex Figaro racer who runs the Marseille club’s training programme.

At the Palma Vela regatta in May Momo lead through the first days but in the end Cannonball, Bella Mente and Momo all finished tied up on the same points tally after six races for the Maxi72 class. After their third place today behind Bella Mente and Proteus, Maxi 72 leaders Momo still hold their 5 points advance but the tussle behind them becomes ever closer. Now just one point separates second overall Bella Mente from Cannonball which dropped to fourth on the leaderboard because of their fourth in today’s race. A good start and better speed in the lighter airs today contributed to Bella Mente’s win, passing Proteus on the second beat of the one race sailed.

Bella Mente’s Mike Sanderson observed:
“We kept battling away and that is one of the enjoyable things about this team. We sail the same way whether we are first or last. We have been working on that pretty hard. The other guys have been working so hard to catch us up and/or pass us. Going into the Maxi worlds the mental toughness is going to be important. There will be five very even boats and the ability to turn a fifth into a fourth and a fourth into the third will be important.”

Sanderson adds, “ All the boats out there are going so incredibly evenly. It is certainly the tightest I have known it in my six years, the tightest by miles. The boats are all going at the same speed and it is only going to get tighter. It is a good thing to be up a place to second place. We need it to stay under 15kts for this current configuration of ours to work best and that looks quite likely but there is plenty of racing left.”

The new Club Swan 50 class had a new winner today in Andrea Masi’s Italian team on Ulika. They another crew who have made the jump from being a top team in the Swan 45, adding the tactical talents of Portugal’s three times Olympian Diogo Cayolla who most recently won the ORC World Championship on Airis.
“We are a new team and we are still getting to know each other and the boat.” Said Cayolla today, “We got the boat in April and since them we have only sailed six or seven days. S45 Ulika first time with them, three olympcis I love one design it is by far the best. We go step by step. The deck layout is a little different to the usual grand prix boat so there is some learning there and we can work on our communication. But Earlybird is a very good team. Yes, we did beat them today but I will be surprised if they don’t win this regatta.”

H.M. King Felipe VI still leads BMW ORC 1 with a substantial 17pts margin now after their fourth palce in the lighter airs today. The Spanish Navy’s Farr 45 may have a big lead but poised in sixth are the Swan 45 Rats on Fire of Rafael Carbonell which has J/80 world champion Rayco Tabares on tactics. Their scoreline is ballasted by a weighty 36pts BFD which they will discard if or when racing takes place Friday which will tighten up the pursuit of Aifos.

There is no net change at the top of BMW ORC 2 or ORC 3, the Rodman 42 Maverta still leading as does Grupo Ceres in ORC 3, so also the Swan 42 leader is still Pez De Abril.

In the GC32 four races were sailed after a long delay, Jason Carroll’s Argo winning three times. Pierre Casiraghi’s team won the fourth race but Naofumi Kamei’s Mamma Autio leads overall by ten clear points. Argo won the first three races, leaving the last to be claimed by Pierre Casiraghi’s Malizia – Yacht Club de Monaco. Despite Argo’s three bullets, this only elevated the US team to second and they are still ten points behind Mamma Aiuto! of Japan’s Naofumi Kamei which has scored a consistent string of 2s and 3s, assisted by the local knowledge of Palma-based Manu Weiller.

Twenty Five Years On, 36 Copa del Rey MAPFRE Honours its 1992 Olympic Heroes
Twenty five years on exactly from the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, nine Spanish sailors who competed at the games and are being honoured at the 36 Copa del Rey MAPFRE this morning. Four of them won gold medals, Domingo Manrique in the Flying Dutchman crewed for Luis Doreste. Palma’s Jordi Calafat took gold as helm in the 470 men. Jose Maria Van der Ploeg sailed to gold in the Finn and (English born!) Theresa Zabell won 470 women’s gold with Patricia Guerra. Natalia Vía-Dufresne won silver in the Europe. S.M. el Rey Felipe VI sailed in the Soling with Fernando Léon. Asier Fernández raced the Mistral and Jaime Piris was in the Star with Fernando Rita Larrucea. All were honoured at a reception at the RCNP this morning.

(Race Report: Copa del Rey press team)

Results. Day 4
(Position/Boat/Country/Skipper/Results/Points)

BMW ORC 1

1. Aifos (ESP), S.M. El Rey Felipe VI, 2+3+6+2+4+4=21
2. Adrian Hoteles Macaronesia (NED), Daniel Adrián Rueira, 1+9+13+1+3+11=38
3. Maserati (ESP), Fernando León, 13+2+7+6+6+5=39
… up to 35 entries.

BMW ORC 2
1. Maverta (ESP), Jose Ballester, 3+2+1+1+3=10
2. Sum Innovation (ESP), Pedro Campos, 6+1+3+6+2=18
3. Kundaka – Elite Sails (ESP), José Coello, 8+3+2+2+4=19
… up to 21 entries.

BMW ORC 3
1. Grupo Ceres (ESP), Daniel Cuevas, 4+1+1+1=7
2. Saona (ESP), Gonzalo Calvo, 7+2+2+2=13
3. Lanzarote Sailing Paradise (ESP), Alejandro Morales, 3+3+3+4=13
… up to 9 entries.

GC32
1. Mamma Aiuto! (JPN), Naofumi Kamei, 2+3+3+2+2+2=14
2. Team Argo (USA), Jason Carroll, 10+6+1+1+1+5=24
3. Real Team (SUI), Jerome Clerc, 4+1+5+9+3+3=25
… up to 10 entries.

Maxi 72
1. Momo (IVB), Dieter Schon, 1+1+1+4+1+3=11
2. Bella Mente (USA), Alex Roepers, 4+4+2+2+3+1=16
3. Proteus (USA), George Sakellaris, 2+3+4+1+4+2=16
4. Cannonball (ITA), Dario Ferrari, 3+2+3+3+2+4=17

Club Swan 50
1. Earlybird (GER), Hendrik Brandis, 1+1+3+2+1+3=11
2. Ulika (ITA), Andrea Masi, 2+4+4+4+4+1=19
3. Niramo (GER), Sonke Meier Sawatzki, 6+2+2+6+2+5=23
… up to 6 entries.

MRW Swan 45
1. Negra (ECU), Francisco Rizzo, 6+1+2+2+6+1=18
2. Automotions (NED), Lennard Van Oeveren, 4+4+5+3+3+2=21
3. Elena Nova (GER), Christian Plump, 5+7+1+1+2+6=22
… up to 8 entries.

Swan 42
1. Pez de Abril (ESP), José María Meseguer, 1+2+3+1+2=9
2. Nadir (ESP), Pedro Vaquer Comas, 2+1+4+4+1=12
3. Red Eléctrica de España (ESP), Alberto Viejo Puga, 7+3+1+2+4=17
… up to 9 entries.

Mallorca Sotheby´s IRC
1. Alegre (GBR), Andrés Soriano, 7+1+3+1+3+2=17
2. Team Vision Future (SUI), Mergui Mikael, 1+4+1+7+1+5=19
3. Phoenix (USA), Hasso Plattner, 5+2+4+2+4+3=20
… up to 16 entries.

Herbalife J80
1. Bribon Movistar (ESP), Marc de Antonio, 1+2+4+3+3=13
2. Les Roches Jeunesse Marbella Team (ESP), Eric Brezellec, 2+1+1+6+4=14
3. VSA Comunicación (ESP), José María Van der Ploeg, 3+3+8+5+5=24
… up to 20 entries.

36 Copa del Rey MAPFRE

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