29er EuroCup Finals at Fraglia Vela Riva - Day 3
by International 29er Class 26 Oct 2022 15:36 BST
23-26 October 2022
The final series of the 29er Eurocup Final, the international event organised by Fraglia Vela Riva, began with a beautiful sunny day and a northerly wind.
The event has a record number of entrants with 150 crews from 17 nations, and will conclude on Wednesday 26 October in Riva del Garda. The FIV Race Committee provided competitors with a punctual start at 10:00 am, managing to complete four exciting races for the Gold fleet in around 10-16 knots. The 77 boats of Gold fleet begin the final series with the net score with which they finished the six qualifying races.
The battle for the podium positions is playing out closely between Italy and France, with the first mixed crew sitting in 4th. Currently the French Under 17 team of Tom Gordon/Maël Clochard and Italians Alex Demurtas/Giovanni Santi are joint on points and sit in first and second place overnight respectively. The former were more consistent today, despite discarding a seventeenth and compensating with a 2-1-3, allowing them to nibble away those 5 points that the Italians had as an advantage at the end of qualifying. Demurtas-Santi controlled their opponents well, closing with a sequence of 1-16-2-8. Three points behind sit the second Frenchmen Revil-Devaux (third at the 2022 Worlds), who were first in the fourth and final race of the day showing the depth and strength of the fleet and closeness of racing.
Just outside the top three Irishmen Clementine and Nathan Steenberge lie in fourth with only 10 points to third. They are followed by Bellomi-Berti, penalised with a disqualification at the start in the first race of the day, to which they reacted with a 4-8-2. They remain fifth and second Under 17 team.
A good recovery also for the other Italians Salerno-Ferrugia (Lauria Palermo) who are sixth overall. Sweden's Zeeberg-Widestam are the first female team, in 20th overall, while in second place, with 5 points, goes to Italy's Malika Bellomi-Beatrice Conti (Circolo Vela Arco) Third is currently Slovenia's Petric-Sedmak. Wednesday sees the conclusion of this EuroCup final racing with a further four possible races and an early start at 9.30 am.
Full Rankings available here.