Four races sailed in Malcesine for the 2023 Italian Melges 24 Tour and Melges 24 European Sailing Series event
May 20, 2023 - Malcesine, Italy - This weekend the ITA Melges24 Tour 2023 makes its debut in Malcesine, a world-famous location as the venue for the main regattas involving the fastest and most performing boats: Melges24, Moth, 69F etc. Regatta in Malcesine is valid also for the ranking of the Melges 24 European Sailing Series.
Melges 24 teams from Austria, Estonia, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and USA are gathered to compete in Malcesine. The event is organized and hosted by Fraglia Vela Malcesine on Lake Garda together with Melges 24 Italian Class Association.
The first regatta day on Friday started with the sad and sudden news of the Legend, Buddy Melges passing away at age 93. The sailors remembered and honoured him with a minute of silence at the Skippers Morning being humbled and thankful for his great legacy and giving us the best performance boat ever - MELGES 24.
The crazy weather of this crazy May in the South of Europe did not allow to deliver any race on the first day of ACT 1 of the Italian Melges 24 Tour in Malcesine. The Race Committee was forced to send the boats ashore due to a lack of wind.
For Saturday, the start of racing was planned for 9 am. And it turned out to be a great day of racing for the Melges 24 class. The northern wind Peler blew since the early hours with an average intensity of 18 knots with gusts between 23 and 24 knots. Several wind shifts and random pressure drops due to rain around the course made difficult the work of tacticians. The high level of the competitors made the races very spectacular and the fleet was very compact. At 12:51 the RC Boat signalled no more races for today and all Melges 24s moved to the shore after four nice races.
Leading the classification ahead of the final day is Laura Grondin's Dark Energy team (USA), followed by Andrea Racchelli's Altea (ITA) and team WarCanoe (USA) helmed by Christopher Rast in third place.
In the Corinthian Division, Luis Tarabochia at the helm of Michael Tarabochia's White Room (GER), leads the ranking in front of Tõnu Tõniste's Lenny (EST) and Miles Quinton's Gill Race Team (GBR) with Geoff Carveth at the helm.
TOP 6 incl 3 TOP Corinthians
After 4 races
1. DARK ENERGY USA864 Laura Grondin - 10
2. ALTEA ITA722 Andrea Racchelli - 12
3. WARCANOE USA825 Christopher Rast - 13
4. WHITE ROOM GER677 (COR) Luis Tarabochia - 18
5. LENNY EST790 (COR) Tõnu Tõniste - 20
6. GILL RACE TEAM GBR694 (COR) Geoff Carveth - 21
2023 ITA Melges24 Tour
ITA Melges24 Tour & European Sailing Series 2023 - Malcesine, Italy
ITA Melges24 Tour & European Sailing Series 2023 - Malcesine, Italy
