The wind slows down the fleet on the fourth day of the Trofeo Xacobeo
No races today in the Trofeo Xacobeo, that remains in play in the Ría de Pontevedra for the European Championship of the 6 Meters class until next Saturday, October 5, under the organization of the Real Club Náutico de Sanxenxo. There has been no luck this Thursday with the weather conditions and the wind has not come to his appointment with the fleet, which caused the race committee to take the decision to postpone to tomorrow the only race scheduled for today.
As every day, the participants met the race committee at 10:00 a.m. for the skippers' meeting at the RCNS. The Race Officer Jano Martín reported at that time that the intention would be to hoist a first postponement on land and keep waiting for the wind to blow with enough force.
Finally, around 14:30 p.m. and due to the total absence of wind and the arrival of fog, the committee postponed the race scheduled for today until tomorrow.
“The reports that we had at the beginning of the day were not wrong,” Martín explained. “After the storm comes the calm and now we are a bit in the middle of two squalls and an anticyclone, which is not letting the wind through. In the end, seeing that there will be no wind all day, instead of waiting until the afternoon we have decided to postpone the day and so the sailors also have a little rest after three days that have been very long”.
As it is, the Xacobeo Trophy will resume competition tomorrow at 12:00 noon, as long as the conditions allow it. “The forecasts are changing every day. The part we see now looking ahead to tomorrow may change overnight and again tomorrow morning, so it is difficult to predict. If there is a chance, we would try to complete two races tomorrow,” concluded the Chief Officer.
A discard that could change everything
With a total of five races completed so far, the Xacobeo Trophy has already sailed the minimum number of races necessary to designate the new European Champions of the class. If the sixth round is held tomorrow, the discarding of the worst result of each team will come into play and the classification could change, presenting new candidates for the continental title.
In Classics, as the general classification stands now, the “Bribon” of King Juan Carlos would continue to dominate at the top of the table. The current defender of the continental title accumulates in his locker the best scores of the entire fleet (1-2-1-2-2), so he would discard for the moment a second place that would allow him to maintain the lead, as long as he continues to score good results.
However, there could be changes between Ossi Paija's Finnish “Astree III” (2-1-2-4-4) and Mauricio Sanchez-Bella's local “Titia” (4-3-7-1-1). Separated by only three points in the overall standings and awaiting the results of the races still to be sailed, Sanchez-Bella's crew and Paija's crew are the ones with the best chances of fighting for a place on the final European podium.
Miguel Riveiro, crew member of Miguel Lago's “Alibaba II”, which is in fourth place, explained this morning that “there are some boats behind that have had some very bad positions and we believe that the discard could hurt us a little, although it will depend on what happens in the following races”.
In the Open division, meanwhile, the overall couldn't be tighter. The first three teams – Rainer Muller's Swiss “Junior”, Violeta Álvarez's local team “Stella” and Henrik Andersin's Finnish “Oiva” - are separated by a single point, while the next two teams - Basil Vasiliou's American “Jane Ann” and Jeremy Thorp's British “Battlecry” - are only three points behind the third.
So far, the Open fleet has been very evenly matched, with very irregular results and constant changes in the overall standings. Any of the top five could occupy the first position tomorrow, so with or without discarding everything points to the Xacobeo Trophy not being decided until the end.
