Simoneschi Victorious In Torbole
After eight intense hard fought races, Riccardo Simoneschi and his team aboard Audi Ultra claimed victory in Act 3 of the Melges 24 European Sailing Series. As always Circolo Vela Torbole and Lake Garda delivered amazing racing in beautiful surroundings and with a warm shoreside welcome for the teams.
Simoneschi took control of the event on day one and sailed an impressively consistent series to beat of nearest rivals Chris Rast aboard EFG Bank and Matteo Balestrero's Giogi. Sunday's final race was sailed in an unusually unstable Ora wind which put everyone under huge pressure. Simoneschi explained the importance of the race saying,
"Every single race is important for the final outcomes – says Riccardo Simoneschi, helmsman and team leader of the Audi Ultra crew – but the seventh heat of the series has certainly been our top performance.
"During the pre-start most of the fleet sailed close the Race Committee boat this did not allow us to find the right sailing space: we crossed the start line later than the leading group but paying particular attention over the breeze ups and downs, the excellent boat finalizing made us to quickly keep up with the sailing fleet.
"Leg after leg we caught up several places and in the end we could slightly approach Giogi, winner of the race with a narrow margin over us. This has been a very important result for the whole team, we could defend the ranking top position and present us for the decisive race with a 3-point-margin over Matteo Balestrero’s team, a strong opponent at the next continental racing.”
Race 8 was won by the Danish team of Bo Boje Pedersen sailing DEN-823, who finished the regatta ranking 13th in the fleet of 27 team. In the overall standings of this third leg of the Melges 24 European Sailing Series Audi Ultra placed 1st followed by EFG Bank with an 8-point-margin and Giogi in 3rd ahead the Japanese team of Makoto Nagahashi and Taki 4 of Giacomo Fossati.
After this third success in the continental circuit of the Melges 24 Class, Riccardo Simoneschi is already thinking about their next commitment: "Torbole has been very important allowing us to undestand our skills in preparation for the next European Championship in Medemblick happening in the third week of August. In Holland we’ll have to face most of these sailing teams and many more tricky such as Lenny, two-time Olympic medalist Tonu Toniste and Storm Capital Sail Racing of the Norwegian Peder Jahre, already three-time European Corinthian Champion.”
After Torbole, the Melges 24 European Sailing Series will be preparing for its decisive stages in Medemblik, Holland (16-24 August) and Hanko, Norway (6-8 September).
PHOTO GALLERY - Our thanks to photographer Matias Capizzano for the images - www.capizzano.com