2025 Fireball World Championship at Circolo Vela Arco - Day 4
by Elena Giolai 28 Aug 2025 16:25 BST
24-29 August 2025
The penultimate day at the Fireball World Championship 2025, organized by Circolo Vela Arco in collaboration with the Italian Sailing Federation and the Italian and International Fireball Classes was, marked by unstable weather but also plenty of drama.
The race committee anticipated the start to 10:00, making the most of the morning conditions: one race was completed in light to medium northerly winds. A second race had already started, but the arrival of a brief thunderstorm caused the wind to drop completely and forced its abandonment.
At the top of the standings remain the British DJ Edwards - Vyv Townend, already Fireball World Champions, but the Swiss Yves Mermod - Maja Siegenthaler (the top mixed crew) have closed the gap to just two points thanks to their race win today. In third place are the Australians Brendan Garner - Ben O'Brien, 14 points behind.
Showing strong progress are the British Dave Wade - Iain Blake, now fourth overall and leading the "classic" crews, with a 1-2 from the last two races. Breaking into the top 10 are the first Italians, Paolo Brescia with crew Filippo Vulcanile, now in 8th place. Also noteworthy is the determination of the Genoese champion Pietro D'Alì, sailing with Ariberto Strabino, who after breaking their mast on Tuesday managed to repair it using a spare section provided by a French team: today they returned to the water and scored an excellent 12th place overall out of 136 boats.
Looking ahead to Friday, the final day of this World Championship, the weather remains uncertain: if conditions allow, the race committee will attempt to recover up to three races to close in the best possible way a championship that has already delivered three spectacular opening days of sunshine and medium-strong southerly winds, with 136 crews from 14 nations and many young sailors and women on the racecourse, alongside the loyalists who have been following the class for many years.