Italy: Day two of racing at the TF35 Scarlino, the final regatta of the 2022 season and Jérôme Clerc at the helm of Realteam for Leman Hope once again sailed a perfect day, adding two more bullets to his team’s impeccable score line.
After a two-hour delay ashore this morning, the sea breeze eventually filled to a stable 6-8 knots allowing racing to get underway off the Tuscan coastline at 1400 hours.
“Today was a very light wind, which was challenging for everybody,” Duncan Späth, mainsail trimmer for Spindrift explained. “It’s a different mode of sailing with different strategies and you never know who will be ahead at the up or downwind mark.”
In Race 3 of the series, Clerc’s team started well at the pin end of the line and immediately tacked off to the left of the course, followed by Spindrift, while the rest of the fleet went right. When the all-important first cross came, Clerc made it through, but Spindrift had to duck the fleet.
At the leeward gate, Loïck Peyron, on the helm of Team Sailfever, had overtaken Realteam and pulled into the lead after banging the right corner downwind. With the breeze up to 8-knots and the chasing pack in foiling mode, Peyron couldn’t hold the pace and had to settle for third over the finish behind Realteam and second-placed Spindrift.
In Race 4, Realteam was off to a good start, but in almost squeezing out Ylliam XII – Comptoir Immobilier at the pin end of the line, she forced helm Bertrand Demole to take a risk, who immediately tacked away to find clear air on the left. The gamble paid off, and Demole was alongside Clerc as they rounded the first gate together at the front of the fleet.
Downwind Realteam extended away and Spindrift pulled into a comfortable second place, but on the second lap, Alinghi Red Bull Racing hit the gas, resulting in a photo finish between the two teams, with Spindrift only just ahead.
Overall, it was a good day for the young crew on Spindrift, who also hold a clean score line of seconds in all of the four races sailed. However, with two days of competition left to be sailed, Späth and the crew are very aware that Alinghi Red Bull Racing will be keeping them on their toes.
Tomorrow racing will continue from 1200 follow live at www.tf35.org
Results after four races with one discard:
- Realteam for Léman hope – 1 1 1 1 – 3
- Spindrift – 2 2 2 2 – 6
- Team Sailfever – 3 3 3 5 – 9
- Alinghi Red Bull Racing – 4 7 4 3 – 11
- Ylliam XII – Comptoir Immobilier – 5 5 5 4 – 14
- Zen Too – 6 4 6 6 – 16
