ORCi EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

ANIENE & LOW NOISE TAKE EARLY LEAD AT 2012 ORCi EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP PRYSMIAN-CELADRIN. With 30 boats participating to represent 8 countries and carrying a wide variety of talent on board, Day One of the 6-day ORCi European Championship Prysmian-Celadrin was still a long one. The light southwest breeze showed early promise, but never stabilized until late in the afternoon when Race 1 got started in 10-11 knots that held nearly constant for the next two hours as Class A did their 3-lap and Class B did their 2-lap race around the buoys.

By being the fastest in the fleet, G. Martin's TP52 Aniene not only sailed in clear air and completed the course over 11 minutes ahead of their nearest rival, but corrected to a victory of nearly 6 minutes over the day's runner-up in Class A, the Stillitano-Narduzzi partnership's Nautilus Wave. But the NM43 was only 19 seconds ahead of Andrea Lacorte's Salona 41 Vitamin A in corrected time, who beat Armin Schmid's new Farr 400 Sonnenkonig by 18 seconds, who in turn was ahead of Giovanni Labini's new Grand Soleil 46 Exprivia Luduan Reloaded by only 4 seconds. In fact, the boats finishing in 2nd through 7th places in this class were only 55 seconds apart in corrected time.

Being close in size to her rivals, Class B's winner, Giuseppe Giuffre's M37 Low Noise, did not have the same crushing effect on her rivals as did Aniene, finishing only 31 seconds ahead of runner-up Morgan, a new Grand Soleil 39 skippered by Nicola de Gemmis, and only 47 seconds ahead of Vincenzo de Blasio's NM38S Scugnizza.

Racing continues tomorrow, with the morning start of the long-distance race over a course of about 130 miles that is set up to be laps sailed from Punta Ala to the island of Giglio and return.

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