Porto Cervo – Sardinia Racing
S/Y Twizzle competed in the Dubois Cup and then the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta being held in early June 2011 in Porto Cervo, sailing in the cruising class.
Day 1 of the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta 2011 in Porto Cervo, with winds from 17 to 24 knots, tested the 27 crew and their yachts to their limits, and beyond in some cases.
Broken sails and halyard strops mean a busy evening for some crew as they work to have their yachts ready for tomorrow’s race, but the sailors relished the challenge of today’s changeable conditions all the same.
A little too exciting at times in the Performance Division, as the fleet converged on the first windward mark all together. Four protest flags flew from different yachts and it will be a late evening for the afterguard of some of the Performance boats, and also for the international jury tasked with deciding what, if any, penalties to apply to some near-miss incidents. ‘You have to expect this when you have boats of similar speed all racing competitively,’ said one Owner. ‘It’s a sign of good close racing.’
The larger and less manoeuvrable yachts in the Cruising Division are governed by a new set of safety rules, including a 40m exclusion zone to avoid any close calls that could result in a collision. The 19 yachts in this division also started at two-minute intervals, the fastest setting out last.
This meant that Twizzle, with its unwarrantedly high handicap of 1.671, started last, with only the two perfromance racing boats Visione and Saudade starting after her. Hitting speeds of up to 15.5 kts, it was an exhilierating race with Twizzle dueling Marie, the new Andre Hoek design from Vitters.
Even if there wasn’t the boat-to-boat drama of the Performance Division, the wind had a few surprises up its sleeve. After virtually no wind at start time, the breeze built nicely to 18 knots, but later gusted higher reaching 25. Just before the finish, a storm cloud just off the entrance to Porto Cervo caused the wind to turn through 180 degrees and created even more work for sailors on the foredeck as they scurried to change from spinnakers to headsails.
The owner of Marie, the 54.6m Vitters ketch, commented: ‘It was an exciting race with up to 25 knots of wind, which caused a lot of broken halyards and headsails. We broke our head sail early in the race during a tack.’ Timoneer and Saudade also had trouble with sails and halyards, pushing them back in the rankings on corrected time.
Harry Macklowe’s Unfurled, an 11 year old Royal Huisman, came first with Hasso Plattner’s lightweight Baltic 147 Visione (which should really have been in the Perfromance Yacht class) tearing past the rest of the fleet to finish in second place. In Performance, Irvine Laidlaw steered his Reichel-Pugh 82-footer Highland Fling XI to victory ahead of Pier Luigi Loro Piana’s My Song. Y3K lies in 3rd, although this evening’s protests could yet alter the standings.
RACING WAS CANCELLED FOR DAY 2 and DAY 4 DUE TO EXCESSIVE WIND SPEEDS!
UNFURLED AND HIGHLAND FLING WIN A WINDY WEEK
Harry Macklowe’s Unfurled and Irvine Laidlaw’s Highland Fling have been crowned the winners of the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta 2011 in Porto Cervo.
With strong winds forcing the final day’s race to be cancelled, Unfurled’s 1st and 2nd places from previous days earned victory in the Cruising Division by 1 point from Kora 5 of Portofino, with Hasso Plattner’s Baltic 147 Visione in 3rd overall.
The strong winds that prevailed for the week suited the ultra-light planing hull of Irvine Laidlaw’s Highland Fling XI. The Reichel-Pugh 82 scored two 1st places to win convincingly ahead of Andrea Recordati’s Wally 101 Indio, with Pier Luigi Loro Piana’s My Song in 3rd overall.
Twizzle had a great regatta with the Race Team under Robbie Haines, Yeren Hobson and Twizzle Captain Gordon Percy running a really slick operation using all of Twizzle‘s sails and spinekars, with just it’s handicap making for a poor result on corrected time. We look forward to returning next year but with a substantially better handicap that is more performance led.