Italy's Alberto Bolzan leads Volvo Melges 24 World
'Volvo Melges 24 World Championship 2008'
Paul
Todd ©
Italy's Alberto Bolzan, helming Gianni Catalogna's Pilot Italia, leads the Volvo Melges 24 World Championship with an impressive 2, 1 score-line proving that his victory in the Pre-Worlds competition was no fluke. Norway's Olympic Bronze Medallist, Herman Horn-Johannessen, sailing Rett Rundt Hjornet lies three points behind in second.
Reigning Melges 24 North American Champion Brian Porter of Chicago, IL, aboard Full Throttle, and Swiss America's Cup sailor Jean-Marc Monnard, in Poizon Rouge, share third place on eight points. Britain's Jamie Lea, helming Team Barbarians for Stuart Simpson is one point behind them in fifth.
In the Corinthian Division, for the all amateur teams, Oyvind Peder Jahre, sailing NOR 554 Terra Eindomsmeglng for Stian Briseid, leads the fleet and lies 17th in the overall competition. Second Corinthian is Rudolf Houdek in GER731 Secret Men's Business, with joint 2006 Corinthian Melges 24 World Champion Jean-Francois Cruette, helming FRA612 for Cedric De Kervenoel third.
The Volvo Melges 24 World Championship, hosted by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, got off to a challenging start today with the 114 strong fleet from 16 nations completing two of twelve scheduled races. The large number of competitors means that the fleet must be divided across two race courses. The fleet has been split into four groups and will sail a six race Round Robin series with each group racing the others twice to identify the Gold and Silver fleets for the final six races of the series.
Today's two races were extremely tough with winds ranging from under 5 to almost 20 knots with massive shifts, big holes in some areas and mini squalls under the clouds in others. There were regular rain showers across the course initially but conditions did improve later with the second race finishing in sunshine.
After racing Alberto Bolzan, Melges 24 World Champion 2006 as tactician for Nicola Celon and IMS World Champion to name but two of his many victories, summed up the day perfectly.
'It was a difficult day. We were very lucky. We made good choices today and Pietro [Catalogna, tactician] is fantastic and did not miss a tack. We finished second place in the first race and won the second race. Because there was a lot of wind shifts, and sometimes the wind was strong and at other times it was light. It was very difficult as one second you could gain a lot and the next moment you could lose a lot so we were very lucky. The crew was perfect and the boat is very fast and we are very determined in the sea.'
Fifth placed Jamie Lea reinforced Bolzan's comments saying 'We had a good start in the first race. We managed to tack onto port early, as it was the thing to do because the wind went right. Really good speed up the first beat then crossed on the little shift at the top, which put us in front. It was very shifty at the top. Big ups and downs, so we were changing gears a lot. It was a good solid day. The level of competition is exactly where we expected it to be and more. There are about 20-30 boats out there that are really. We are just going to keep plugging away at it.'
Melges 24 - Leading positions after 2 races
1 ITA 727 PILOT ITALIA, Alberto Bolzan/Gianni Catalogna ( 75)(O )(N) 2 1 3
1 NOR 732 RETT RUNDT HJORNET, Herman Horn/Team Rett Rundt Hjornet ( 25)(BK)(N) 4 2 6
2 GBR 691 TEAM BARBARIANS, Jamie Lea/Stuart Simpson ( 1)(BK)(N) 1 8 9
3 FRA 470 COTES D'ARMOR, Ronan Dreano/Troel Simon ( 96)(W )(N) 2 9 11
3 USA 649 FULL THROTTLE, Brian Porter/Brian Porter ( 30)(BL)(N) 5 3 8
4 ITA 574 ONLINE -SIM FIREBOLT, Roberto Martinez/Carla Ubertalli ( 97)(W )(N) 9 2 11
4 SUI 599 POIZON ROUGE, Jean/Jean-Marc Monnard ( 34)(BL)(N) 3 5 8
5 SUI 521 BLU MOON, Flavio Favini/Franco Rossini ( 4)(BK)(N) 11 5 16
6 ITA 715 UKA UKA RACING, Lorenzo Bressani/Lorenzo Santini ( 27)(BK)(N) 10 6 16
7 ITA 667 BRONTOLO AB MEDICA, Matteo Ivaldi/Filippo Pacinotti (118)(BK)(N) 6 13 19
8 NOR 554 TERRA EINDOMSMEGLNG, Oyvind Peder Jahre/Stian Briseid ( 93)(W )(Y) 15 4 19
9 HUN 728 PROXIMO, Arpad Litkey/Xsailing ( 28)(BK)(N) 17 3 20
10 ITA 673 GULLISARA, Carlo Fracassoli/Comerio Giuseppe ( 2)(BK)(N) 3 20 23
11 FRA 451 GIVE ME FIVE, Adrien Follin/GM5 Racing Team ( 94)(W )(N) 18 7 25
11 ITA 664 MAIDOLLIS, Giovanni Pizzatti/Gian Luca Perego ( 40)(BL)(Y) 8 12 20
12 SWE 532 ROCAD RACING, Mikael Lindqvist/Ingemar Sundstedt ( 18)(BK)(Y) 13 12 25
13 GER 731 SECRET MEN'S BUSINESS, Houdek Rudolf/Houdek Rudolf (111)(W )(Y) 14 11 25
14 GBR 690 A-TEAM WESTAWAY, John Pollard/John Pollard ( 88)(W )(N) 5 28 33
14 FRA 612 BOUYGUES TELECOM ( 35)(BL)(Y) 7 16 23
15 CZE 704 MARGARITA, Jakub Kozelsky/Petr Matuska (114)(W )(N) 12 22 34
16 ITA 567 CONTE OF FLORENCE, Andrea Magni/Arturo Mazzanti ( 12)(BK)(Y) 16 19 35
17 FRA 261 PERROS-GUIREC, Albaret/srPerros ( 22)(BK)(Y) 25 11 36
18 GBR 654 CODE ZERO, Geoff Carveth/Miles Quinton ( 3)(BK)(N) 26 14 40
18 FRA 639 EURO-VOILE, Christophe Barrue/Denis Infante ( 59)(O )(N) 16 10 26
Two further races are planned Monday with racing due to start at 11:30. The twelve race series runs until Friday 6 June.
by Fiona Brown 
Ormiston, QLD
