Alexia wins La Giraglia and the week
by Giraglia Rolex Cup Media Centre 30 Jun 2003 12:34 BST
The record for La Giraglia, the offshore race of the Giraglia Rolex Cup, held by Riviera de Rimini since 1998 was broken shortly before noon on Friday by Alfa Romeo, New Zealander Neville Crichton’s 90-foot Maxi yacht. Crichton, and his mostly Antipodean crew who collected line honours in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race in December last year, managed to shave more than two hours from the five year old record, claiming that many more hours could be removed if the conditions at the start had lasted. Alfa Romeo took line honours in every race during the Giraglia Rolex Cup week and now heads to the English Channel for the Rolex Fastnet Race in August with another course record in mind.
169 boats followed Alfa Romeo around the Giraglia Rock and into Genoa over the rest of Friday and Saturday, amongst them Raiola Raffaele’s Idea, Pierluigi Lora Piana’s My Song and Charles Dunstone’s Enigma, all three also bettered Riviera de Rimini’s 1998 reference time. Alberto Roemmers’ Maxi Alexia finished just 21 seconds outside however but managed to collect best corrected time for this double points scoring race. Alexia, lying second overall in class before the long race moved up to first overall in class and fleet. Roemmers was awarded the Giraglia Rolex Cup and a Rolex Yacht Master chronometer at the final prize giving ceremony at the Yacht Club Italiano on Saturday night.
The Giraglia Rolex Cup is a week long regatta incorporating three inshore races in Saint-Tropez before the 243-mile La Giraglia that took the fleet to Genoa via a rocky outcrop to the North of Corsica. Racing in the inshore series was dominated by the Stefano Spangaro’s Class One yacht X-Sport skippered by Gabrielle Benussi. Benussi himself stepped down for the long race as he had to travel to Sardinia to prepare for the Rolex Farr 40 Worlds, which start on 3rd July. X-Sport managed to win Class One again in La Giraglia but finished more than two hours out of the top spot in fleet.
Class Two in La Giraglia was won by Dominique Tian’s IMX-38 Glen Ellen, a boat that hadn’t participated in the inshores meaning that overall Class Two honours for the week went to Philippe Ettore’s A40 Ettore.
In La Giraglia, Class Three was won by Jean Paul Brugiere’s X-332 Lexington, but it was Guy Nicolas’ First 36.7 Alcidia, finishing in fourth place in the double points scoring offshore race, that collected Class Three overall honours for the week.
Last but not least, the smallest boats in the fleet Class Four. La Giraglia was won by Francois Laurent’s First 32 Sietel Midi Telecom, but it was Camillo Capozzi’s Polaris 33 Ala Bianca that had set the pace all week and wound up with the overall Class Four honours.
Conditions for the offshore were boisterous on the leg from France to Corsica where the fleet experienced winds of up to 27 knots from the South West at times. For most of the fleet the wind lasted all the way to the rock before it dropped away to finally fill in weakly from the South East creating slow sailing conditions for the remainder of the race to the finish.
The Full Results and position reports for the 2003 Giraglia Rolex Cup can be
found at: www.yci.it/regate/regate2003/giraglia/index_en.htm
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