News Around the World
Well, you would, wouldn’t you if only you knew where to get them… Mrs Marcus ‘Hooligan’ Blackmore monstered (sic) the rest of the Hamilton Island Race Week fleet when she took over the campaign for the purpose of also locking down the Prix d’Elegance Trophy
overall Super Series trophy. With two races, today we have the possibility of getting back the 7pt difference to Platoon. So let’s try.’ A characteristic of the TP52 circuit is that each and every one
of the races is counted. There are no discards and that forces teams to avoid the big risks that sometimes as viewers we most enjoy! ‘I don’t know how the strategies would change,’ adds Guillermo, ‘but I do know that introducing a theoretical discard into the results of recent years has made little or no difference – which is quite interesting… but remember we sail more than 50 races so one discard is a relatively small number of points. ‘It’s something I don’t think about since our rules have been like
this for 10 years. We sail knowing that all the races count. Personally, I like it this way, without discards, because I think that in the end it rewards the most consistent teams who take risks tactically but avoid extreme options. With as many races as we sail during the season everything balances out and the results are always fair.’ The Argentinean skipper was happy with his season, ‘I think we
have met a large percentage of the objectives we set for this year. We have managed to be more competitive than last year in light winds, but without losing performance in medium and strong winds. ‘Having the overall series lead starting this final stretch means
that we are not doing things wrong. You would always like to be a little better, you can always do better – during the season you see many lost points but all teams think the same. The interesting thing is to strive to reduce that rate of unforced errors. The most important technical novelty of the Azzurra team is her
new appendages, designed primarily to improve acceleration, ‘We are sure that the new appendages are not going worse, and the boat has improved in the exits to tacks and also in the turns – these are critical moments in which we wanted to gain a few metres and we have achieved that.’ But sometimes there are questions that do not find an answer.
Would you swap finishing second in the World Championship in exchange for winning the Circuit? ‘When I return to port this afternoon I’ll answer you (laughs).’ Guillermo’s rush to leave Puerto Portals for England and the start
of the J/70 Worlds prevented me from asking him again and knowing his answer, but Azzurra left Puerto Portals with a margin of 6pt over Platoon and 11pt to Quantum Racing. Maybe after finishing the circuit in Porto Cervo we will have his answer. But it was not Azzurrabut Platoonthat was crowned for the second time after their first world title in 2017. This time they celebrated
26 SEAHORSE
it more effusively, as Victor Mariño explains. ‘Today we sailed very nervously and made many mistakes, but we were able to win the world championship!!! It has been a strong week so we are very happy. We were very consistent the first two days, then a very good third day gave us the margin of points we would need to win the championship… because today we had a day to absolutely forget.’ Regarding the penalties they got on that last day the Spanish
sailor was blunt: ‘The penalties were for silly mistakes, probably because of nerves. We have been very aggressive, very stressed. We have to reflect that we keep incurring penalties at the events and it is something we must solve if we want to fight Azzurra and Quantum in Porto Cervo for the title.’ Curiously, the happiest crew in Portals was neither of the two
protagonists for the title, but Provezza… After dismasting on the first day she rejoined for the last two days of the series with an incredible performance. ‘I have no idea what would have happened if we had not broken the mast,’ explained Nacho Postigo. ‘Platoon have sailed well all week, although today they almost lost it – it seemed they were a little nervous. I think we could have been fighting for victory and for sure for the podium in Portals… ‘Yesterday in the first race [7th] with a little more wind we had
to change a lot of the trimming with the replacement mast but in the next two races we started to go fast. Today with less wind we also found some good settings. As we always do, this morning we lined up with Azzurra and when we finished Santi [Lange] told me joking on the VHF that we were going faster with this mast (laughing).’ About the replacement mast Postigo said, ‘The biggest difference
is the rigging; the rigging of the broken mast was solid carbon and the replacement one is a little more flexible. The settings of the previous mast do not match and so we especially had to find new diagonal and backstay tensions. We almost had to start from scratch – we even thought about modifying the luff curve of the mainsail, because this mast is stiffer, but we did not have time. For Porto Cervo we have a good feeling – if we sail calmly I think we will be back to where we were before breaking the mast.’ History will remember that Platoon won the title, but perhaps
also that Provezza was the moral champion. The Turkish team’s subsequent average of 3.40pt, against the 4.44pt of the winner, allows us to think nicely for this popular team… Carlos Pich
SALTY DINGO
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