“Provezza” TUR 1212 Win 4th San Remo Winter Series…

TUR 1212 “Provezza” Andy, Simon & Adar win 4th winter Series in San Remo.

27 teams took part in the 4th and final winter series organised by Yacht Club San Remo from 11th to 13th February. This has proven to be a popular venue over many years and on this occasion, strong easterly winds on Friday and Saturday made for some spectacular racing with tough upwind legs followed by exhilarating surfing opportunities downwind. In conditions like this there is nowhere to hide, very little luck involved and the best sailors will end up on top. It was very clear from the onset that current World Champion Andy Beadsworth did not come to San Remo to drink coffee….  he came here to win.

Super conditions in San Remo, with more fantastic photos from Elena Razina.

After their decisive win in Cannes two weeks ago, Andy Beadsworth, Simon Fry & Arda Baykal won both races on Friday, then a 3rd followed by another win on Saturday gave them an unassailable overall lead as only one race was scheduled and sailed on Sunday.

To be fair, it was not all plain sailing for the current World Champions as many top teams pushed hard to curtail Provezza’s dominance. ITA 77 “Bunker Prince” helmed by the 2015 World Champion Evgeniy Braslavets recorded 2, (3), 1, 3, 1 to finish on 7 points, just 1 point behind overall. Also RUS 76 “RocknRolla” helmed by Dmitry Samokhin also had a great series with (7), 2, 2, 4, 3, to finish 3rd overall on 11 points, so it was not all one way traffic, but with the European Championships looming on the horizon, can Provezza be beaten ?

2nd Overall Evgeniy, Sergey & Alex.     3rd Overall Dmitry, Andrey & Kasper.

I spoke with Arda Baykal (the middleman on TUR 1212) he told me “Racing in San Remo has always been a lot of fun for me. I love the venue and the pleasure of racing here is something else. It’s incredible to be part of the Provezza family and to team up with two great sailors. Andy and Simon are both incredibly helpful and push me to become a better sailor at sea and more technical on land. In every race we have great respect for all our competitors and we give 100% effort to win. The feeling of winning a race against our key rivals is indescribably beautiful, exciting and satisfying”. Well said Adar and very well done.

Another close to the action photo from Elena Razina.

There is no doubt San Remo has excellent infrastructure for all types of sailing events, which is why it was chosen by the IDA to host the 90th Anniversary of the Dragon Class back in October 2019. The next Dragon regatta the Yacht Club Sanremo will host is the Italian International Dragon Cup, the Paul & Shark Trophy, 17th-20th March.

Followed by the International Dragon European Championship, April 4th to 8th…

My thanks once again to Elena Razina for the wonderful photo’s and to Lillie and all the Ladies in the Office for their hard work helping to organise each event…..

Higher, Faster, Longer…..   Stavros.    GBR 673 “Fortitude”