The Italian IACC 120 Cup stays in Northern Italy with exciting win by Mauro Folicalai with Avera (FRA 93) over last year’s winner Garaiele Tancini BMW Orcale (USA 71) in an exciting 3-2 final.
This year’s Italian IACC120 regatta will be remembered for its very light conditions which made sailing difficult for the less experienced (like myself) and the dreaded Kaikora weed, it was like rolling of dice decided the fate of many skippers success for the event this year.
Friday evening I met with the guys from the southern Italian fleet from Rome in nice little B&B which had a swimming pool and with only sailors staying there you can imagine the pool was only occupied with yachts. I took the opportunity to do little hull resistance testing between Jaguar, Black Magic & Alingi, which turned out to be a good thing for me as I have been playing around with different rudder sizes and it was only during the pool testing did I manage to find the rudder with least resistance in push tests across the pool.
First day with beautiful weather and after set-up was in the water and practising in 5-7 knots, and after ½ hour ran into problems with winch dying on NZL 32 & then my 14 year old son sailing Jaguar had completely dead electrical system, with 15 minutes to go for 1st fleet race he’s me changing winches and replacing complete wiring system in Jaguar and we both managed to get the boats in the water just after the start, and time for my heart rate to come back to normal and managed to catch the fleet and haul myself into 10th in 16 boat fleet.
From then, progressively manage to improve with 9th, 5th, and 3rd in following races, wow looking good then was knocked back to reality :rolleyes: in next race when the dreaded weed got me and then the next race my old nemesis from last year’s de-masting of ETNZ (Azzura) tangled with me on the start line and we were locked together again this year, no-one faults as neither of us could see our boats on the crowded start line at the time, fate got us and our boats were mating for the second year running, a habit we got to break next year Renato 
Then disaster hit my son with Jaguar again with another completely dead electrical system, I then discovered condensation inside the hull had got into the BEC and short circuited everything (this was also the cause of the first system failure) so he was out for the rest of the afternoon unfortunately.
End of the first days fleet racing I was placed 6th on the leader board so was as happy as a pig in shet 
then lend my boat to some-one to sail before we finished for the day and then another winch failure on NZL 32 … oh no! Just when I thought my winch gremlins had gone, they were back with panick ! :scared:
Saturday evening was busy trying to get salt water out of two electrical looms from Jaguar which we managed to recover at least one system and put in my last winch for Sunday.
Day two to complete fleet racing saw me claw one place up the leader board to 5th and qualify for final 8 boat match racing. I drew Alingi SUI 102 in semi finals and in first leg managed to keep pace then around top buoy I had penalty for contact and could not catch the gap for rest of the race as the air was very light.
Second match race great start and managed to get good puff, then ran into windless pocket and SUI 102 managed to pick up pressure and it was all over for me.
The official full posting of results should be up on http://iacc120cup.altervista.org/ soon.
It was clearly obvious the only gap between the top 4 on leader board and myself was experience & tactical skills, these guys are all very good in pushing penalties to have advantages on each other … and that’s part of what Americas Cup it is all about … isn’t it ?
Highlight for the weekend was my 14 y.o son Nicholas winning vote for the best looking AC replication boat at the regatta which made up in part, for the electrical problems encountered.
I’m sorry but I did not have enough time to take photo’s as it was busy weekend for me, but there were lots of photographers at the event so should see them appearing on http://iacc120cup.altervista.org/ soon.
Congratulations to Mauro Folicalai and Avera FRA 93 for fantastic win for Italian IACC 120 Cup it was the best boat package at the regatta with ClaudioD designed hull and sails by Luca and it was in the hands of the best skipper on the day, well done !!!
I like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in organising the event, as usual a great weekend and special thanks for the friendly help and advice from everyone …see you next year !
Cheers Alan.
P.S Prize giving update just posted by Luca.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wgB1-5-27E&feature=uploademail
has got me completely stumped, but I will be in Hong Kong later this month and have visit to Robbie2 on my agenda, hopefully will find out something !?
