As expected, the final day of the J/70 Eurocup at Fraglia Vela Riva was a duel to the finish for the top two leaders in the standings of the J/70 Alcatel OneTouch Italian Nationals—CALVI NETWORK with Carlo Alberini at the helm and L’ELAGAIN with Franco Solerio skippering. Their duel was one of the highlights of the three-day series held from September 10-13 on the Lago di Garda, a famous lake in the northeastern part of Italy that is known for very reliable mountain winds and the spectacular scenery. Against that backdrop, Solerio’s crew on L’ELAGAIN built upon their experiences in the J/70 Worlds in La Rochelle, France and not only won the final regatta on Lago di Garda but also the entire J/70 Alcatel OneTouch Championship series! Here is how it all played out over the three days of racing. Day 1: The first day of the final round of the J/70 Alcatel OneTouch Italian Trophy got off to a perfect start. Three races were completed with the usual fantastic “ora” wind that blew from 14-16 knots. As for the regatta organization, kudos to Fraglia Vela Riva who three years ago promoted the first J/70 Eurocup. The fleet is now starting to get very skilled and numerous (with over 30 boats in competition), and has an international feel with eight nations taking part including Sweden, Russia, Monaco, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Malta. Thanks to the good wind of the first day, the event got off to a flying start with a head-to-head between Solerio’s L’ELAGAIN (with Cassinari as tactician) and Alberini’s CALVI NETWORK. Solerio came out better with two wins and a second that gave him a 7-point lead over Alberini (8-2-1). Sebastian Ripard of Malta, sailing BETSAFE, was in third place after sailing to three fourths. Luca Domenici followed on NOTARO TEAM just one point behind. He finished third in the first two races and seventh in the third. Day 2: Three more races were sailed on the second day under the usual beautiful afternoon conditions on Lake Garda with winds of 12-14 knots from the south. With the discard introduced, Alberini’s crew on CALVI NETWORK went into overdrive and claimed three straight bullets to take the lead in the standings, with a two point lead over Solerio’s L’ELAGAIN. The racing again saw a heated battle between Alberini and Solerio, with L’ELAGAIN sailing to a 3-2-2 score—not quite enough to hold off CALVI NETWORK from taking the lead. An exciting finale was in the cards! The bronze medal position was also being hard-fought as Ripard’s TEAM BETSAFE leap-frogged over Domenici NOTARO Team into third place. NOTARO Team was disqualified (which was then discarded), but had no margin of error in fourth position, three points behind the Maltese boat. Jacopo Carrain’s CARPE DIEM put in a good effort coming within 4 points of a place on the podium and was sitting in fifth overall. As was predicted, the final day was a duel to the finish. The fairly light winds in the morning gave different conditions from the previous days where the afternoon winds from the south blew in at 14 knots. The introduction of the lighter winds was an important element for Solerio’s L’ELAGAIN team. The first two races the morning were balanced with CALVI NETWORK winning the first and L’ELAGAIN the second. It was all down to the third race as tactician Cassinari (L’Elegain), well aware of the hypothetical advantage he had over his opponent, skillfully played it safe to gain position on Alberini and drive them down into the middle of the fleet. As a result, Solerio tossed their last race and counted only races in the top three, including three firsts and four seconds. Alberini settled for second place in the regatta and second overall in the J/70 Alcatel OneTouch Italian Championship series (Monaco, San Remo, San Remo, Cervia, Riva del Garda). Team BETSAFE, with Sebastian Ripard of Malta skippering, held on to take third place while the NOTARO team suffered another OCS false start after a third and 16th, which dropped them into seventh place overall. Fifth in the regatta was Pietro Saccomanni’s SPIN ONE team from Venice (they were also fifth overall in the series). The top Monaco team in sixth place was Carrain’s CARPE DIEM; top German team in eighth position was Moritz Bohnenberger skippering TOURING JUNIOR; top Austrian team in 13th place was Klaus Diem’s PFAENDER; top Swiss team in 15th was Julian Flessati’s BODENSEE; top Swedish crew was Mikael Lindqvist’s ROCAD RACING from the Royal Swedish YC; and top Russian crew was Sergei Ezhikov’s OST-WEST JUNO. There was a great comeback for UJI UJI with Alessio Marinelli and Federica Salvà who finished fourth overall with a good win in the last race (as a result they also took fourth overall for the championship series of five regattas). For more J/70 Alcatel OneTouch Italian Championship sailing information, visit http://www.fragliavelariva.it/.