Uno Farr 40 Europeans at Istanbul, Turkey - Day 2

Farr 40 Europeans day 2 © Osman Ugur

Consistency pays off for Enfant Terrible

Consistently good performances in the two races held on day two of the UNO Farr 40 European Championship enabled Alberto Rossi’s Enfant Terrible (ITA) to consolidate their lead in the overall classification. Two second places in tricky conditions on the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul were enough to extend the Italian team’s delta to seven points ahead of Wolfgang Schaefer’s Struntje Light (GER) and Jim Richardson’s Barking Mad (USA).

While Enfant Terrible – recent winners of the ORC World Championship in their class - now have a reasonable lead, only five points separate the following four boats and up to five more races may be run in the series. With no discard coming into play and tricky conditions meaning even top-class teams can come a cropper - current Farr 40 World Champion Guido Belgiorno-Nettis had a fairly disastrous day as his Transfusion (AUS) took last place in both of today’s races and slid from second place overall to fourth– every race will count over the next two days. Organized by the Farr 40 Class Association in collaboration with Marmara Sailing Club, the event sees eight Farr 40 one-design yachts representing 6 nations competing from 13th to 16th October.

The first race of the day, Race 4 of the series, started on schedule at 12.05 in eight knots of north easterly breeze with flat seas. Struntje Light led from the start and rounded the downwind mark followed by Asterisk UNO (TUR) with Jes Gram on tactics. Over the successive legs Enfant Terrible, who were over early at the start, climbed steadily up the fleet to finish in second place with Asterisk UNO in third.

The Race Committee was forced to wait several hours for the shifty breeze, which was partly due to a dense cloud formation over the city of Istanbul, to stabilize before Race 5 got underway just before 3 p.m. Ten knots of breeze accompanied the fleet across the starting line and it was the turn of the home teams to shine. Despite winning the start Struntje Light was not able to stay at the top end of the fleet, instead Turkish team Provezza, owned by Ergin Imre and Levent Peynirci, took the lead and were followed round the first downwind mark by fellow Turks Asterisk UNO. The boats held their positions to the finish however Provezza was later disqualified as the result of a protest, leaving Asterisk UNO taking first place over Enfant Terrible and Barking Mad.

Cameron Appleton, tactician on Struntje Light summed up the day’s sailing: “It was tricky today, from a couple of the forecasts we were expecting more breeze but it ended up being light and shifty. We did a very good job in the first race, we got to the top mark first and were able to extend. In the second race we got a fantastic start but there were some shifts that were really hard to pick up and see and I didn’t do a very good job of finding those. We haven’t been very consistent, we’ve won some races and had some deep finishes but there are eight teams here finding out the hard way that it’s not easy. We hope we can continue to close the gap on Enfant Terrible over the next few days and remain in contention but tomorrow’s forecast is not great, it’s going to be another tricky day so we’ll see what happens.”

Racing has been moved forward tomorrow, Saturday 15th October, to 11 a.m. with the aim of completing three more races. North easterly winds of 15 to 18 knots are forecast.

For further information, Notice of Race, full programme etc. please visit www.farr40.org , www.farr40.net or www.turkfarr40.com