Italian Half Ton Class - Asteria Cup 2015

The Italian Half Ton fleet have had a recent warm up for their National Championship during the five race Asteria Cup held from 30 May to 2 June.  This was won by the Farr design Loucura overall on IRC (Fabrizio Gagliardi), following a 1/2/2/2/1, and confirming victory after the final race by one point over Claudio Massucci's Gunboat Rangiriri (3/1/1/1/2), another Farr design, by just one point, with Moments (Luciana Morino) taking third (2/3/4/4/3).  

Loucura - winner of the 2015 Asteria Cup (photo Half Ton Class Italia)

The series started with a 115 mile long race, from Anzio to Ponza and Ventotene which carried a 1.5 points loading. Two days were allowed for this race, but was completed by Stern-Pragma Multimedia in just 25hr 40m, just 8 minutes ahead of Loucura, which took out the win on corrected time. This was reported in the Italian Half Ton Class website as "A beautiful route between the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean with a sunset to remember and an exciting step in Ventotene, the wind on 8 knots allowed good speed and continued to blow the night allowing a good upwind in the ascent towards Anzio". 

Gunboat Rangiriri has a good start in the mixed IRC Class 1 and 2 fleet

However, the breeze faded at Circeo and that was the turning point of the race.  Loucura choose the edge on the ground, while Gunboat Rangiriri stood off, Stern-Pragma Multimedia held between the two, followed by Moments. Stern gained the wind from the west first, but it was not enough to overcome the time allowance for Loucura, which also finished third in the overall IRC fleet. 

Gunboat Rangiriri finishing a race in first place in the earlier Anzio Winter Cup

The two days of racing following the long race involved inshore races in breeze of between 5 and 10 knots with smooth seas. Gunboat Rangiriri carried sailmaker Antonio Incarbona and tactical Maurizio D'Amico aboard and demonstrated incredible pace, winning three races and just missing a fourth win to Loucura by two seconds. Some new sails are planned for Gunboat Rangiriri which should fill the gap in her wardrobe and see her become even faster.

Moments during the 2015 Asteria Cup

The 2015 Italian Half Ton National Championship will be held in Fiumicino on 24-28 June.

The Ceccarelli designed Stern-Pragma Multimedia finished fourth overall with placings of 4/4/3/OCS/4