SPANISH FLY ON DAY 2 OF LANZAROTE INTERNATIONAL REGATTA

470: Spanish Fly

Jordi Xammar (ESP) set a new standard for driving the 470 downwind in waves during the last Olympic cycle leading up to Tokyo 2020. Today the Olympic bronze medallist and his crew Nora Brugman pushed their 470 hard in all three races and scores of 1,2,2 launch the Spaniards to the top of the pile.

There had been a bit of trepidation in the boat park early this morning for the scheduled 0945 hours start time. During the long sail out from Marina Rubicon to Course Alpha, the pounding waves took their toll on equipment, particularly to the mast of Italian team Marco Gradoni and Alessandra Dubbini (ITA).

When their mast snapped in half, the Italians rushed ashore, stepped a replacement rig in the boat and rejoined to the contest to notch up a very respectable 6,10 scoreline which has them in 8th overall.

Complete Madness!

Chasing Xammar & Brugman for the overall lead are the reigning European Champions from Sweden, Anton Dahlberg & Lovisa Karlsson (SWE), who scored 2,1,9. Dahlberg, the Olympic silver medallist from Tokyo, has been campaigning 470s for almost 20 years but today the experienced veteran was grinning like a kid in a sweet shop. “It was this kind of day where it was complete madness on the reaching leg. I told Lovisa to get out on the trapeze and she said ‘I can’t! There’s huge waves and there’s no way I can get on the side of the boat!’ It was pretty funny.

“Those were special, exceptional conditions. It’s you, your partner, the boat, the wave; you’re in this zone, and it was super, super fun. It wasn’t that windy, but the waves were huge. Very tricky sailing, but so much fun. We had some pretty good results but I think the Spanish were really good today.”

Second best performers of the day in the 470 were Nitai Hason & Noa Lasry (ISR) whose scores of 3,3,1 lift the Israelis to 6th overall.

The forecast for Sunday and the coming days is looking very good. Racing starts at 1100 hours on Sunday morning for the 470 Mixed on Alpha course and the 49erFX women on Bravo.

This international event, organised by Marina Rubicón with the support of the Royal Canarian Sailing Federation is possible thanks to the institutional sponsorship of Promotur Turismo de Canarias with the financing of the REACTEU Fund and Tourism of the Cabildo de Lanzarote through the sports product European Sports Destination (managed by SPEL-Turismo Lanzarote), as well as the public collaboration of the Yaiza City Council and the private entities Dinghycoach, Naviera Armas & Cabrera Medina (Cicar).