X-35 Class at the Copa del Rey - Day 2

An offshore gradient breeze met the boats on Tuesday morning, so most of the 25 strong fleet of X-35s chose to delay their cast-off before the planes landing at Palma Airport made their approach from the opposite direction. This happened around midday and with the sea breeze settling in the teams rushed to get used to the conditions. The Race Committee started on time and after a general recall the Swan 45s were underway.

With 13 knots of breeze the X-35s had a clean start and the boats currently at the top of the scoreboard battled to hold their lanes out to the left hand side of the track. Quantum Holland and leaders Cool Runnings sped left in the flat water as Perfect Ten broke out alone with a short stint on port. Half way up the beat the breeze moved 20 degrees to the right and the Turnstone Estates sponsored TEN moved into first place. As the fleet was circled by the television crews, they led the boats down the long run closely pursued by a pack of Spanish crews. The wind looked to be dropping and most of the boats changed headsails to their Code 1s before rounding the leeward gate. On the second beat, again the leaders favoured the mid-right of the course, yet Italians Giochelotta and X-Trific, followed by British Cool Runnings again banged hard left and it paid off. Giochelotta moved into first place and held to take line honours down the run as TEN finished second and X-Trific third.

As the X-35s took lunch and waited for the other fleet to get started the wind built and shifted to the right. The crews hurried to pull their Code 2s back on deck and tighten their rigs and after some delay due to the wind shifting around the fleet were into sequence. After a general recall, the fleet left the line with two boats called over by the race committee. British Cool Runnings led to the top with Quantum Holland in hot pursuit. Not far behind were Quantum team-mates Perfect Ten and the Italian Giochelotta. The fleet was grouped in a tight pack until the leeward gate where, by splitting from the leaders, Giochelotta and TEN gained, pulling into second and third place by the top of the second beat.

Unfortunately, Cool Runnings were just too far ahead to catch, and Thorkild Juncker’s British boat took the gun and after two days racing leads the regatta with just 9 points. Having had the best day on the water, Italian Giochelotta moved into second with 20 points whilst Turnstone TEN are close on their heels with 23. Race 5 begins 1pm Wednesday.

Full results can be found at prensa.rcnp.es/coparey2008/resulta/monotipo/gen44004.htm