FIRST TRIAL OF THE MARINA YACHTING SARDINIA CUP

Porto Cervo, 16th September 1998

At 10:30 this morning, the first trial of the Marina Yachting Sardinia Cup got off to a successful start. This eagerly awaited trophy is organised every two years by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda in cooperation with Plus Factor, with the support of the Italian Sailing Federation.

The 11 national teams participating in this year's edition finally set sails, after the postponement of yesterday's trial due to strong winds. Today's offshore regatta programme, 80 miles long, will pass Cala di Volpe, Capo Figari, Molarotto and Siniscola, concluding in a return to Porto Cervo.

Once again, the weather today was anything but calm: the race began amidst 25 knot winds, which increased to 35 knots in the early afternoon hours. Several teams in this first trial had a lightning-fast departure, and were forced to start again: the Italian Brava Q8 (Pasquale Landolfi - Tom Dodson) and Breeze (Paolo Gaia - Tommaso Chieffi) and the Spanish Bribon (Josè Cusi - Pedro Campos, awaiting the arrival in Porto Cervo of His Royal Highness Juan Carlos). The Merit Cup Pro saw its share of trouble today as well: with Vasco Vascotto at the helm and sailing under the colours of Malta, the team experienced serious problems with its genoa (bow sail), only to then see its spinnaker (remaining bow sail) torn.

At the Siniscola passage, the five Maxi One Design craft were in the lead, the 24 metre monotypes belonging to the Swiss-Italian shipowner Ernesto Bertarelli; these boats are competing in the routes of the Marina Yachting Sardinia Cup, but are classified separately. The contending boats' movements were tracked by the Orbcom satellite, installed by Telespazio, this afternoon around 3:30.

Of the various teams vying for the Marina Yachting Sardinia Cup, the group of large boats was headed by the Argentinian maxi Alexia (Guillermo Parada), with the Italian Edimetra (Ernesto Gismondo - Mauro Pelaschier) hot on its heels. In the medium category, Brava Q8 (Pasquale Landolfi - Tom Dodson) was shown to have a comfortable lead; among the small craft, the Italian-Maltese Tamoil Lady X Lady (Piergiorgio Ravaioni - Paolo Cian) was expected to have a lead over the Italian Malinda (Massimo Mezzaroma - Antonio Sodo Migliori). Unfortunately, the satellite was unable to track several boats, such as the newly christened Italian champion Winterthur Yah Man (Vittorio Rava - Lorenzo Bressani) and its compatriot Blue Storm (Gualberto Gualtieri - Luca Santella).

Today's final results will be made available at 8:00 p.m., when the regatta concludes for the day. For updates on the race, visit http://www.sardiniacup.com produced by After, or call (+39) 078994269.

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