Banco Espirito Santo wins the Friuli Venezia Giulia RC 44 Cup

Patrick de Barros and Russell Coutts haven’t had to fight to keep their three points lead over Armando Giulietti’s Team Hiroshi – Città di Milano: there was once again no wind today and the racing got cancelled at 2:30 PM by Race Officer Peter Reggio. With three matches and five fleet regattas sailed in five days, the Friuli Venezia Giulia RC 44 Cup won’t remain in the history books as one of sailing’s greatest moments. Luckily, yesterday’s regattas were great, and such was the atmosphere and the Italian hospitality, turning the event into a great happening despite the absence of wind. With top four results in all five races (1, 4, 4, 3, 2), Patrick de Barros’ Team Banco Espirito Santo, with Russell Coutts at the tactics, wins the event ahead of Armando Giuliett’s Team Hiroshi - Città di Milano and Chris Bake’s Team Aqua. The next regatta of the RC 44 Championship Tour 2008 is also the season’s most important regatta: the Gold Cup. The event will take place on December 10-14 in Puerto Calero, on the Canaries Islands, and promises to be intense. Indeed, Banco Espirito Santo and Team Aqua have closed the gap on the Championship Tour leaders, Team Hiroshi – Città di Milano and Ceeref. No doubt the fight for podium positions will be intense, and hopefully with a good breeze! The RC 44 yachts will sail the Barcolana regatta tomorrow, against 1500 other yachts. They will then be delivered to Portoroz on Monday, dismantled, stored in their purposely built containers and trucked to Hamburg with the support of DHL before being shipped to the Canaries Islands. Fleet-race Final results after five races - (Ranking, name of team, helmsman, results, points) 1) Team Banco Espirito Santo, Patrick de Barros, 1, 4, 4, 3, 2 – 14 points 2) Team Hiroshi – Città di Milano, Armando Giulietti, 3, 5, 1, 1, 7 – 17 points 3) Team Aqua, Chris Bake, 7, 1, 2, 5, 4 – 19 points 4) BMW ORACLE Racing, Peter de Ridder, 2, 6, 8, 8, 1 – 25 points 5) Artemis, Sarah Roberts-Thomson, 4, 2, 7, 6, 6 – 25 points 6) Ceeref, Igor Lah, 5, 7, 9, 2, 3 – 26 points 7) Organika, Maciej Navrocki, 6, 9, 5, 4, 5 – 29 points 8) Cro-A-Sail, Miroslav Reljanovic, 10, 3, 3, 7, 8 – 31 points 9) ITA 7, Peter Heerema, 10, 8, 6, 9, 9 – 42 points RC 44 Championship Tour 2008 - Fleet-race Provisional results after five events - (Ranking, name of team, helmsman, points) 1) Team Hiroshi – Città di Milano, Armando Giulietti, 100 points 2) Team Banco Espirito Santo, Patrick de Barros, 126 points 3) Ceeref, Igor Lah, 136 points 4) Team Aqua, Chris Bake, 150 points 5) Team Sea Dubai, DIMC, 196 points 6) BMW ORACLE Racing, Larry Ellison, 209 points 7) Organika, Maciej Navrocki, 237 points 8) Cro-A-Sail, Miroslav Reljanovic, 241 points 9) Beecom, Isao Mita, 248 points 10) Mascalzone Latino, Vincenzo Onorato, 327 points 11) Artemis, Torbjorn Tornqvist, 330 points 12) Magia, Fabio Apollonio, 351 points