The current J/70 European Champions, Solyd Property Developers/SailCascais, of Vasco Serpa, Paulo Manso, Bernardo Plantier and Diogo Pinto, from Cascais topped the table in the 6th stage of the J/70 Cascais Winter Series to take also the full Cascais J/70 Winter Series title.
After two bullets, and a less happy 7th place in the first day, no races due to lack of wind in the second, the winners opened with a second place, followed with a bullet and wrapped it up with two more second places on the third and last day. “The results don’t tell the whole truth as we had really close races with the top 3 or 4 boats finishing in one to two boat lenghts of each other and the top three not being decided until the last race.” said Vasco Serpa, that followed with, “Maybe we were just a tiny bit more comfortable in the wavy and mostly light conditions and that made a difference”. About the near future he said “This event was a great wrap up for us. It’s now time to go to Italy to prepare for the upcoming Europeans in late May. After a long winter of sailing in Cascais we are looking forward to test with the top European and American teams.”
Second place in the event was “Another Affair” of Miguel Oliveira from Clube de Vela Atlântico, with Tiago Morais, Francisco Oliveira and Luis Queiroz with very consistent results of 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 3, 1. Closing the podium, local Bábá of Nuno Silva, with Hugo Rocha, Fran Palacios and Vasco Empis with 2, 5, 1, 3, 1, 4, 4. A few penalties affected their end results. First Corinthian was for the Portuguese Champions Trimarine/SailCascais of Rui Brites.
In overall Cascais J/70 Winter Series second place went to Castor Marine/SailCascais of Vasco Passanha, and third for Trimarine/SailCascais of Rui Brites. The overall Corinthian Winner was for UK Jellyfish of Tim Dickinson.
On its first edition, the J/70 Cascais Winter series had 29 teams taking part from 8 different countries. 35 races were sailed out of 54 scheduled, a 65% completion ratio. Even thou low for Cascais standards, still 2 in every 3 races scheduled. There were 5 different event winners in the 6 that took place. A great start for the J/70s in Cascais, that goes into the next season as a proven concept. Together with the local fleet expanding locally and the J/70 Worlds in Palma in September these numbers will increase dramatically next year.
Its a wrap from Cascais from now. The local J/70 calendar moves to Vigo in May and June where the Portuguese and Spanish fleets will sail together. The J/70s will return in July to Cascais for the Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Trophy.
This The championship was supported by Turismo de Portugal, Visit Cascais, Cascais Municipality, Portuguese Sailing Federation, Cascais Marina,SailCascais, Sagres and Vista Alegre; and had the environmental certification of the NGO Sailors for the Sea, which awarded the race with the “silver” certificate, the second highest in its ranking.
Results 6th Stage: https://regatas.cncascais.com/en/default/races/race-resultsall/text/cascais-J/70-winter-series-6th-stage-en
Results Overall: https://regatas.cncascais.com/en/default/races/race-resultsall/text/cascais-J/70-winter-series-2023-2024-overall-en
Photos by Neuza Aires Pereira: https://wetransfer.com/downloads/b52e37c93e3b4055c171f8ccb6a7e18720240409114230/41ed612883151aec6771491fc5501b0220240409114313/1a01e2
Video Day 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnhOZOpDlQs
Video Day 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgg-Zn7qnuk