The Swan One Design Worlds, the Swan class world championship that is being held this week at the Real Club Náutico de Valencia, has today experienced a third day of intense competition at sea, in which the teams have taken positions to become contenders to the world title.
Tomorrow, Saturday, will be the last and decisive day for the three classes of one designs in competition – ClubSwan 36, ClubSwan 42 and ClubSwan 50 – so some of the participants have taken advantage of today’s tests to consolidate their positions at the top of the table , while others have done it to climb positions in the middle part of the classification.
Although the leaders of the respective classes have not changed, the intense fight for the top positions has been evident in very tight results.
The two tests of this third day have been held in the waters of the Gulf of Valencia with a southeast wind of 15 knots of intensity, with flat seas at the beginning of the day and some waves towards the end of the tests.
ClubSwan 36: Mamao stays in the lead with little margin
In the ClubSwan 36 fleet, Giangiacomo Serena di Lapigio’s G Spot took victory in the first race of the day, overtaking Haakon Lorentzen’s Brazilian Mamao and briefly topping the table, as that the eighth position of the second test has taken them back to the second position, four points behind Mamao.
Cuordileone by Edoardo Ferragamo and Farstar by Giangiacomo and Lorenzo Mondo, are one point behind, tied on points occupying third and fourth places.
ClubSwan 42: Nadir looks over his shoulder
Pedro Vaquer’s Nadir found himself a new challenge today in the ClubSwan 42 class, with his closest rivals Selene-Alifax and Dralion claiming both wins of the day. In this sense, Dralion has obtained the best results of the entire fleet.
His tactician Hugo Victor Rocha was satisfied: “The route has gone quite well, we won the first test and in the second we finished second. Everything has gone perfect, our start has been perfect, and the speed has also been great”.
And added: “Tomorrow we will try to start well and have a good day, because there will be two tests. The conditions in Valencia are incredible, incredible!” .
Nadir enters the final day with a five point lead over Selene-Alifax and Dralion another three points behind.
ClubSwan 50: two boats to one point
In an incredibly competitive week, the ClubSwan 50 class had a very intense day today.
Despite his victory in the first test today, Cuordileone, skippered by Leonardo Ferragamo, has not been able to shake off Hendrik Brandis’ Earlybird, and both go into tomorrow’s final tests with just one point difference between them.
Earlybird’s tactician, renowned Australian sailor Tom Slingsby, commented: “Today it was great to sail with this wind, it was a perfect regatta, very nice” .
“We want to win tomorrow but the table is tight. We would love to have a good day tomorrow and if we do we know we can win but we have made some mistakes so if tomorrow we manage not to make any we have a good chance. We know that we’re fast enough; we’ll wait and see what happens.”
With best-in-class results today, 3-1, Louis Balcaen’s Balthasar keeps his third-place hopes alive, albeit nine points off the lead.
However, defending world title holder and season leader Hatari, led by Marcus Brennecke, may have been left with too much ground to make up.
“It was very difficult for us today, we are not sailing very well and we are not up to our old standards.” Brennecke pointed out. “We’re not consistent and we’ve made too many mistakes. Obviously tomorrow we’d like to perform at our best. We hope to ride better with fewer mistakes and at least get on the podium.”
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