EUROPEAN MELGES 24 SEASON GETS UNDERWAY IN MONACO
From Christelle Durand of the French Class - The Melges competitors once again are satisfied : the cocktail is always the same for this “premiere” of the Melges 24 season : shifty and sunny conditions are just guaranteed. 9 nations are represented, among which are many new Italian and French teams, all warmly welcomed at the Royal Yacht Club of Monaco. The 37 strong Melges 24 Class is the most significant in terms of competitors, among the Mumm, 40.7 and B 25.
On this first day, starting at 1 pm, the competitors could enjoy 2 races.
First race - black flag procedure - 110 ° shifty wind – Blue Moon is back from Key West and the Worlds in Ocean Reef in Florida, helmed by Christopher Rast (in the absence of Flavio Favini, busy on the America’s Cup). Obviously Florida training is keeping you performing since he immediately took the leadership in the first race. His challenger for this race was Daniele Belluzzi, on a brand new boat AMF NIKITA, ahead of the Brit John Grimson, aboard WILD THING. Just after them, Andrea Racchelli, Olympic Star specialist, and his habitual crew on ALTEA.
Second race – after a promising start with a 110° wind , the conditions turned out to be very shifty and tricky, leading to a “stop and go” race, and finally ending up in a “no more wind” situation. Only 6 boats managed to finish on time (within 30 minutes after arrival of the winner) : the Italian winner AMF NIKITA, ahead of the French Maxime Paul and his crew BIG SHIP, followed by the Hyères crew FLOR DIRECT (Alain Roig). The Italian LIOCORNO MELSINEO (Sandro Montefusco), the two Swiss POIZON ROUGE (Jean Marc Monnard) and BOORINSLA (August Schram) are the other “survivors”. The rest of the fleet just remained “stuck”, ending up as “DNF” for this race.
After this first day, AMF NIKITA is leading the general ranking, ahead of BIG SHIP and LIOCORNO MELSINEO. It is much too early to draw any conclusion and the very unusual result of the second race has definitely impacted the first day ranking : all the more surprises for the races to come !
The essential to be noted is definitely the presence of 10 new crews in the Melges 24 fleet, showing the dynamic growth of the class and confirming in advance the interest of the Melges Worlds this year, in Hyères, during August 2006.