Closing in on Copa del Rey titles

After a second and a first today, their strongest performance of the week in the best sea breeze so far, Marcus Brennecke’s double world champion, Hatari, leads the ClubSwan 50 class into the final day of the 40th Copa del Rey Mapfre with a cushion of four points ahead of Stefan Heidenreich’s OneGroup.

The top two teams are more or less assured of a place on the podium, but in this furiously competitive one design fleet, it seems unlikely the two title rivals will square up for a match race finale.

Hatari’s German tactician Markus Wieser smiles, “With only one race to go we will see what happens, if we have a chance to hold them back and tack on them, I am sure we will, and if we give them a chance, I am sure they will do the same to us.”

Racing with older sails, Hatari’s crew would rather the race officers wait until tomorrow’s sea breeze strengthens as much as possible before the one showdown race is sent off.

Hatari won the favoured left off the start line on the first race and led all the way round, whilst OneGroup dropped to a ninth.

With three times Olympic medallist, Germany’s Jochen Schümann as tactician, OneGroup led the next race with a perfectly executed first upwind. Hatari could not cross the fleet, despite another good pin end start and getting left early. She was third at the top mark but squeezed past Niramo on the final run.

A first and third in the ClubSwan 36s is enough bring the 2021 Copa del Rey champion, G Spot, back into touch. She is just two points behind class leaders Farstar, which has led since Day 2. G Spot’s Italian tactician, Michele Paoletti, is hoping they can close that deficit and retain their title.

Paoletti reported: “We made a bad first upwind and then were lucky with one of the course changes that it worked for us, we climbed back into the fleet. On the last downwind, we lost one point on our direct rival, Farstar, so you feel that heavily but we won the second race.

“We will see what we can do tomorrow. It is all open and I am happy we are in the game. I don’t think we sailed so well this week, I made some mistakes as a tactician so we are still there and tomorrow is a big day.”

The young German crew of Carl-Peter Forster’s TP52, Red Bandit, from Bayerishcher YC near Munich, have been fighting back since they lost a protest against them in the first race.

Red Bandit’s disqualification from the Race 1, gave her a whopping 19pts to carry through the Preliminary Series. However, the crew have stuck to their task and today after a 2,1 in the brisker 15-17kt sea breeze, they now lead BMW ORC 1 by five points ahead of the Spanish DK46, HM Hospitales.

Red Bandit’s Adrian Hoesch: “It was the strongest wind of the regatta so far and that helped us, as we were quicker than the DK46s when we were planing downwind. We had two good starts, got into good positions and that meant we could get a second and a first, so we are really happy.

“I think we are in a good position for the last day, we are happy. Today we just kept it simple, we made sure we got clean starts, sailed as easy as possible and stayed out of trouble and hopefully tomorrow we can do the same, we need to not get nervous, have no crazy ideas, get the boat ready early.”

In the ClubSwan 42s, Pedro Vaquer’s Nadir goes into the last day’s one race with a four-point lead and no score in the Finals worse than third,

In BMW ORC Class 2 Javier Banderas Teatro Soho Caixabank carries a margin of five points forward to Saturday’s showdown and is clear favourite to retain the class title. By comparison, the most straightforward is BMW ORC 3, where Enzo de Blasio and the crew of Scugnazzi are 14 points ahead.

However, Trieste navigator Andrea Visintini cautions, “It is nice to be going into the last day with a big lead, but we had a tough day yesterday and this class is very tight with some good boats. Today it all worked out fine, but all the time the results are down to just seconds here and there. Tomorrow we still need to be careful, sail consistently.”

Overall top three results:

ClubSwan 50

1. Hatari, Marcus Brennecke, 4+4+1+1+2=12
2. OneGroup, Stefan HeidenReich, 3+1+2+9+1=16
3. Niramo, Sonke Meier-Sawatzki, 6+2+5+2+10=25

ClubSwan 42

1. Nadir, Pedro Vaquer, 5+2+2+1+3=13
2. Pez de abril, José María Meseguer, 3+4+6+2+2=17
3. Koyre-Spirit of Nerina, Mirko Bargolini, 1+7+1+8+1=18

ClubSwan 36

1. Farstar, Lorenzo Mondo, 1+3+1+2+3=10
2. G Spot, Giangiancomo Serena, 2+1+5+3+1=12
3. Facing Future, Mehmetr Taki, 4+2+4+6+2=18

BMW ORC 1

1. Red Bandit, Carl-Peter Forster, 4+6+1+2+1=14
2. HM Hospitales, Carles Rodríguez, 1+1+2+9+6=19
3. From Now On, Ezequiel Despontin, 5+3+7+1+4=20

BMW ORC 2

1. Teatro Soho Caixabank, Daniel Cuevas, 1+1+5+1+2=10
2. Rivareno Gelato-Elena Nova, Plump/Sanz, 3+3+6+2+1=15
3. Katarina II, Aivar Tuulberg, 2+2+2+3+6=15

BMW ORC 3

1. Scugnizza, Enzo de Blasio, 1+2+5+1+1=10
2. Brujo, Federico Linares, 2+4+1+3+14=24
3. Tanit IV-Medilevel, Nacho Campos, 4+1+7,5+10+2=24,5

BMW ORC 4

1. Meerblick Fun, Otto Pohlmann, 1+NSC/8+NSC/8+1+1=19
2. Enewtec, F. Miguel Giménez, 2+NSC/8+NSC/8+2+2=22
3. Pulpo Negro, Giampiero Giannetti, 6+NSC/8+1+4+5=23

Mallorca Sotheby´s Women´s Cup

1. Balearia, María Bover, 1+2+3+5+1+1+2=15
2. Dorsia Covirán, Natalia Vía-Dufresne, 2+3+1+1+4+6+1=18
3. Soho Boutique Hotels-Trocadero, Eva González, 3+1+4+2+2+3+3=18

Herbalife Nutrition J70

1. Alcaidesa Marina, Gustavo Martínez Doreste, 2+1+2+1+3+3+2=14
2. Les Roches-Tripsst, Luis Bugallo, 1+2+3+3+1+1+7=18
3. Bodega Can Marles, Jorge Martínez Doreste, 3+3+5+4+2+2+1=20

Full results: https://www.regatacopadelrey.com/resultados2022/resultados2022.php?ln=sp&claseinput=04