With a final race sailed on Saturday, Girls on Film, sailed by Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey and Ben Cornish, has retained the 5.5 Metre Alpen Cup at Circolo Vela Torbole, which they also won in 2019, the 2020 event cancelled due to Covid.
John B (BAH 22, Gavin McKinney, Lars Horn Johannessen, Mathias Dahlman) placed second while Momo (SUI 229, Dieter Schoen, Fuitjof Kleen, Thomas Auracher) was third.
The final day started early in the half-light before the sun peeked over the Garda mountains, while the northerly wind just seemed to strengthen during the morning. Initially held on shore for an hour, the fleet was sent out in a bitterly cold 18-20 knots with some bigger gusts causing a few problems. There was plenty of action.
While Girls on Film crew kept their eyes on Momo and John B, Ali Baba (Craig Symonette, Flavio Marazzi, William Alloway) had the best of the very shifty first beat to round ahead and lead all the way to take the win, while Girls on Film followed in a comfortable second, which as it turned out, was enough to take the series win.
After the race finished, the fleet was sent ashore with not too many complaints.
Morton explained the day, “We’ve had fantastic Garda breezes every day. This morning was quite cold and dark when we first started in the northerly breeze. We just needed to make sure that we tucked up John B and Momo, so we covered them on the first beat and ended up second which was good enough to tie up the series.”
On the decision to only run one race, “The wind was getting close to the class limit. The forecast we got was that when the sun came up the northerly would actually increase. By the end it was pretty close to it, and I think they’ve got plenty on here today with other events, so they probably needed to get us tucked away. We were quite happy.”
There has been a lot of talk about Morton’s new boat. He says it is not too dissimilar to the current fleet, but the second boat that he has been building, due to be launched in a few weeks, is a different story.
“GBR 41 is the first of the new boats. We tested it against our old boat (a 2003 Wilke from Switzerland), which we knew was reasonably competitive, so we were quite confident and this weekend has proved it’s a pretty good all-round boat.
“I have to say that all the VPPs and CFDs we indicated, it would be better in a breeze. We’ve yet to race against the Swiss boats in really light winds and that may be different, but certainly we were very comfortable here upwind and downwind.”
The second boat is also nearly finished.
“GBR 42 is something quite different again. That should be ready in about four to five weeks and then we’ll do some testing in the Solent. It’s quite different, a David Hollom design. David has some definitive ideas. Certainly all the testing we did, and the VPPs we did, indicate the boat will be stronger in a breeze over 10 knots, but it is quite different to all the other boats, so who knows? We’ll be in the penthouse or the outhouse I suspect.”
The prizes were presented by Giorgia della Valle, CVT’s own ILCA 6 U21 world champion. Girls on Film not only won the Alpen Cup again, but also the Trofeo Franco Santoni, first presented in 2018 to remember the 5.5 Metre sailor and former President of Cicolo Vela Torbole.
After a few years of disrupted schedules, the hope is that the 2022 season for the 5.5 Metre class will be back to normal.
Next year is shaping up to be another exciting year with the World Championship and Scandinavian Gold Cup heading to Hankø in Norway, and a good range of Category 1 regattas across Europe. It will all start where the 2021 ended, with the Alpen Cup at CVT back in its normal slot in April.
Final results after 6 races
1 Girls on Film (GBR 41, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ben Cornish) 9
2 John B (BAH 22, Gavin McKinney, Lars Horn Johannessen, Mathias Dahlman) 13
3 Momo (SUI 229, Dieter Schoen, Fuitjof Kleen, Thomas Auracher) 13
4 Ali-Baba (BAH 23, Craig Symonette, Flavio Marazzi, William Alloway) 19
5 Marie-Françoise XXII (SUI 232, Jürg Menzi, Jürgen Eiermann, Christof Wilke) 21
6 Otto (NOR 68, Bent Christian Wilhelmsen, Lasse Berthelsen,Luka Strahovnik) 23
7 Ali Baba (GER 84, Richter Wolf-Eberhard, Beata Kallkowski, Wolfgang Schreiber, Oliver WeiB) 35
8 Forza del Destino (SUI 211, Prapopoulos George, Simon Pfänder, Gil Pfänder) 36
9 New Moon II (BAH 24, Mark Holowesko, Christoph Burger, Peter Vlasov) 50
All information: https://www.circolovelatorbole.com/en/regatta/detail/195
