The Jean Genie (GBR 43, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ruaridh Scott) took a commanding lead on a very tricky opening day of the 2025 5.5 Metre Alpen Cup at Fraglia Vela Riva, on Lake Garda, Italy. Aspire (POL 17, Przemyslaw Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) ends the day in second with Girls on Film (GBR 41, Louise Morton, Charlie Cumbley, Sam Haines) in third. The race wins went to Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli-Saether, Johan Barne), Aspire and The Jean Genie.
Over the training days the lake has produced some solid afternoon winds, but that all changed on Thursday with early mist and an unstable wind that varied up the course with holes for the unwary, and which produced a mixed bag of results for much of the fleet.
Artemis led all the way in Race 1 after starting at the pin and heading right. The Jean Genie started late at the boat and also went right, to round in fourth and then chipped away downwind and up again, to pass John B (BAH 26, Gavin McKinney, Mathias Dahlman, Lars Horn Johannessen) to take second.
In Race 2, The Jean Genie was first away at the boat end and sailed away for nice lead at the top. They held this until near the second top mark when the wind had started to drop and were passed by Girls on Film who had stood on further and avoided the big hole. Girls on Film led downwind but Aspire had better speed into the gate and took the win with The Jean Genie in third.
The wind was becoming more unstable into the last race of the day, and again. The Jean Genie owned the right-hand corner, rounding first. This time they lost to New Moon III (BAH 25 Mark Holowesko, Christoph Burger, Peter Vlasov) downwind who went to the right and took the lead. However, it was short lived as The Jean Genie passed them on the final beat again to lead down to the finish, with Shaolin (SUI 226, Flavio Marazzi, Andreas Kindlimann, Patrick Zaugg) in third.
Charlie Cumbley, Girls on Film, is sailing only his second day on a 5.5 after one day of standing-in last year in the Solent.
“Great day. Great little fleet, very competitive, great breeze as usual down here. I’m loving it and looking forward to two more days. The boats are all subtly different, but I’m learning you can mode them quite differently and for me jumping in and learning a new boat is great, very interesting. And there are some old mates here as well. It was a great day of boating.”
Morton is no stranger to success on Garda, having won the Alpen Cup three times before, but he said today was tough.
“There was quite a lot of mist over the lake this morning and the sea breeze never really kicked in and when it did it was quite left, so it was not as clear cut as the normal ‘get to the cliffs and see how you do’. But it was a good day’s racing. We had anything from 10-14 knots.
“It was tricky with some big holes and a couple of times we had no wind, but it was a good day for us. We’re pretty happy. Ruaridh Scott was pretty adamant about what he wanted to do and which way he wanted to go so sometimes we took some pain at the start to get to the side we wanted.
“On the first start we gave away quite a lot of bias in order to get to the right and initially it looked pretty horrible, but Lake Garda is one of those places where if you believe in getting into the cliffs you’ve just got to get in there. There was always more pressure. There were some windsurfers further up the lake and they were always favouring the right and they are pretty smart about where to go on Garda. So, we tended to get led by them. There was a shift at the top, but it was anything from 220 down to 165, but it was interesting the pressure was the cold breeze and the light patches were the warm breeze, so you could feel the shift coming by the temperature change.
“What a fantastic place to sail, but tough.”
Racing continues until Saturday with five more races scheduled.
Story by Robert Deaves
Results after 3 races
1 The Jean Genie (GBR 43, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey, Ruaridh Scott) 6
2 Aspire (POL 17, Przemyslaw Gacek, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, Kilian Weiss) 12
3 Girls on Film (GBR 41, Louise Morton, Charlie Cumbley, Sam Haines) 15
4 Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli-Saether, Johan Barne) 16
5 Shaolin (SUI 226, Flavio Marazzi, Andreas Kindlimann, Patrick Zaugg) 16
Full results: https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/documents/11501/event
Full gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fivepointfivemetre/albums/72177720325802594
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