Rolex TP52 World Championship - Azzurra fights hard but endures

by Azzurra on 19 May 2017 The third day of the Rolex TP52 World Championship: Azzurra had a good start but was hard set by her adversaries and finished sixth. Quantum won, with Platoon in second and still on top of the provisional leader-board.

The 25 mile coastal race in the Gulf of Follonica, with a shifty 10 to 20 knot southerly, left Azzurra without the opportunities she needed to climb back. A foul taken but not acknowledged by the judges with Alegra at the first windward mark made it that much harder, and Azzurra had to wait for the next downwind leg to recover positions. On the next upwind leg to the Sparviero Rock, Quantum covered Azzurra and bounced her back twice. Three other boats managed to move in front, and the long reach towards Cerboli Island offered no tactical options to change the situation. Rounding the island just off the coast of Elba, Azzurra did some spectacular and daring maneuvers under the cliffs and managed to recover both positions and distance to the first group of Provezza, Quantum and Platoon. On the next beat Azzurra was caught in a streak of lighter air and she was back in sixth, the position she held on to right to the end during the long reach back to the finish line.

Guillermo Parada, skipper: 'A tricky day again; we had an ok start, then we think a boat fouled us at the top mark and made us loose one position, then after this we chose to go to the left where Quantum did a very good job, tacking on top of us a couple times and leaving us in the left corner with no options on the long beat. Here we lost a couple places to Alegre, Platoon and Bronenosec. At the second island we were able to recover and get in touch with the front group again, but unfortunately the left was strong and we were positioned on the right, because that was our only possibility, so we stayed in the same position for the rest of the race; from there on it was a procession to the next mark, so not a lot to do.

We will quickly put this day behind us and also try to talk to the judges to understand how they’re thinking. Three or four times we think that they should have penalized other boats, but they didn’t. And then we’ll reset ourselves and go racing as hard as we can again tomorrow.'

The starting gun for tomorrow’s two windward leewards will be at 1pm. The forecast is for a low pressure front and rain to move through the area, with southerly winds between 14 and 20 knots and waves up to two meters.

Live streaming will continue on the 52 Super Series website and updates will be posted on Azzurra’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Rolex TP52 World Championship - Day three after five races
1. Platoon (GER, Harm Müller-Spreer), (2,3,2,2,2) 11 points.
2. Quantum Racing (Doug DeVos, USA), (1,2,8,1,1) 13 p.
3. Alegre (Andrés Soriano GBR/USA), (5,6,4,4,3) 22 p.
4. Azzurra (Alberto e Pablo Roemmers, ITA/ARG), (3,1,6,8,6) 24 p.
5. Gladiator (Tony Langley, GBR) (6,10,1,3,8) 28 p.
6. Sorcha (Peter Harrison, GBR), (7,4,3,10,10) 34 p.
7. Bronenosec (Vladimir Liubomirov, RUS), (8,7,9,5,5) 34 p.
8. Provezza (Ergin Imre, TUR) (RDG7,8,10,6,4) 35 p.
9. Sled (Takashi Okura, USA), (4,9,7,9,7) 36 p.
10. Rán Racing (Niklas Zennström, SWE), (10,5,5,7,9) 36 p.