STRAIGHT WINS TO ITALY AND FRANCE IN 420

Day 2 delivers stunning racing at 420 Junior Europeans

The renowned Lake Garda ‘Ora’ wind came through today, knocking up a superb 20-25 knot breeze to deliver a great challenge to the 113 teams competing at the 2012 420 Junior European Championship. To ensure a fair allocation of team performance across the fleets, the teams were reseeded across the three fleets based on their position on the leader board from race day 1. The Junior European Championships pitches all the teams, open and ladies against each other in the same fleets.

Ilaria Paternoster/Benedetta Di Salle (ITA) and David Charles/Alex Charles (ESP), the two 420 champions of this year’s ISAF Youth Worlds, were neck and neck on equal points going into today, and again were seeded to different fleets. But today’s breeze proved too tough for the young Italian pair who dropped back down the leaderboard from first to 30th after 21st and 25th place race finishes.

Not so for the Spanish brothers who thrived in the conditions to post a 5,7 in the blue fleet, as it proved to be a day for the heavier crews and big breeze sailors. Despite what most teams would consider an excellent day’s sailing, Alex was reflective, saying, “Today we had hard conditions and it was not our best. I don’t think we were sailing as fast as the others, but we were still sailing really fast. We took the shifts because here it is quite simply that you have to take the shifts on the right to be at the front. “

The Spanish are keeping an eye on the French pair of Guillaume Pirouelle/Valentin Sipan, who claimed the bronze medal behind them at the recently concluded 420 Worlds. Alex continued, “The French had a bad race yesterday, but today they got two firsts and I think they will be back up soon.” Pirouelle/Sipan won their two races in the yellow fleet.

From one tiebreak to the next, as again Spain ends the day in second overall on the leaderboard to Giacomo Ferrari/Giulio Calabro (ITA), with both teams on 15 points each, and both racing in the blue fleet today. The Italians also posted two first places.

In the red fleet, it was two different winners in the day’s races, with Craig Dibb/Charlie Cox (GBR) taking race 3 and Taylor Burn/Oscar Rorvik (NZL) race 4.

Dibb/Cox are one of the top British pairings, and were crowned British Youth National Champions earlier this year.

“The breeze was up and we were raring to go in the morning, so we just went out and gave it our all and it came off good," Dibb said. “We worked hard and had a start which enabled us to do what we wanted, and then we really focussed on boat speed.” Cox took over, saying, “We were second at the first mark and then had to reel the Israelis in. We almost lost it at the gate mark, as we went round the left when the right was paying but we tacked back and we were then a bit quicker than the Israel boat and passed them on the last run.”

Fresh from bronze medal success at the ISAF Youth Worlds, Annabel Vose/Kirstie Urwin (GBR) didn’t contest the 420 Worlds to give themselves time for some recuperation before heading to the 420 Junior Europeans. With a different crew Vose secured the 2011 420 World Championship title and bronze medal at the 2011 Junior Europeans and is one of the main challengers again this year, with the pair ending day 2 in 29th overall.

Vose said, “We have been doing a bit of training in the UK. We have had a 10 day break since the Youth Worlds, but definitely we preferred to have a break and refocus on this Championship.”

Of the top three finishers at last year’s Junior European Championships, it is only Guillaume Pirouelle/Valentin Sipan (FRA) who have made a return to defend or improve on their title. They were second in the last year’s open nation leaderboard and top European team competing. However, as we have already seen there is more than enough talent to challenge the French for podium places.

Top 10 Overall – After 4 Races
1. Giacomo Ferrari/Giulio Calabrò (ITA) – 15 pts
2. David Charles/Alex Charles (ESP) – 15 pts
3. Craig Dibb/Charlie Cox (GBR) – 16 pts
4. Francesco Rebaudi/Pietro Canepa (ITA) – 22 pts
5. Fratzeskos Mpakatsias/Evaggelos Christopoulos (GRE) – 23 pts
6. Toby Morsley/Matt Wallis (GBR) – 26 pts
7. Guillaume Pirouelle/Valentin Sipan (FRA) – 31 pts
8. Deniz Bagci/Kaan Tuna (TUR) – 31 pts
9. Adrian Dominguez/Calixto Abalo (ESP) – 31 pts
10. Michail Karagiannis Zenetzidakis/Vasileios Kontakis (GRE) – 32 pts

Race day 2 wrapped up with Jim Saltonstall (GBR) giving the teams a video debrief of the day’s action.

Championship Format
The Championship is being raced over a 12 race qualification and final series from Saturday 11 August though to Friday 17 August, with one reserve day scheduled. The Junior Europeans is restricted to teams who are aged 18 or under in the year of the Championship. The initial qualifying series of a scheduled 6 races over three days sees teams split into three fleets – yellow, blue, red – and re-seeded after each day of racing. Based on their finishing position in the qualification series, teams will then be allocated to gold, silver and bronze fleets for the 6 race final series.

Championship titles will be awarded to 420 Junior European Champions and to the top Ladies teams.

Results

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12/8/2012 21:00