Saturday, the final day of racing finally brought some numbers that Bella Mente is used to posting on the scoreboard.  Their week of sailing together in the tough fleet paid off with a second in the mornings race and a bullet for the twelfth and final race.  The vibe on the boat was they were consistently sailing welland working as a team, they just weren’t posting top positions.

Bella Mente finished the regatta in 4th place to RAN, ALEGRE and CONTAINER.  We will meet up with these teams and more in one month for the Mini Maxi Worlds in Sardinia.  For now, permanent boat crew will remain in Palma with the boat and get her ready.

After two more days of racing, feelow competitor RAN has taken 4 bullets in a row in Thursday and Fridays races advancing her to the #1 spot overall for IRC A.  BELLA MENTE continues to face challenges and has only been able to maintain her 4th place position to ALEGRE and CONTAINER respectively.  Although the team knows they won’t be adding any more bling tot he trophy case from this year’s Copa del Rey, they are focused on using every day on the water to prepare for the next event in Sardinia in just a few weeks.

There is one more day of racing tomorrow for the fleet and then we can post the final standings.

Wednesday’s Distance Race report, as written from the Copa del Rey website: (http://www.prensarcnp.es/copa10/noticias/0031_uk.php)

The compensated time classes (IRC and RI) faced today’s traditional coastal race, a thirty miles long course which scored double, in twelve to fifteen knots wind which shifted from the southwesterly to the easterly. From the start, the fleet headed to an offset mark, from which they sailed downwind towards the first bottom mark, and from there to the variable windward one. The first scoring mark was placed next to Illetes, and, from there, a beat took them to the Isle of Sech, where the second scoring mark had been set, then back to Sech, and straight to the finish line.

The IRC A delivered few novelties in an eventful day which resulted in two broken spinnakers, those of “Ran” and “Bellamente”. The first stretch was for the giant of the fleet, “Ran”, what allowed her to comfortably control the rest of the race. Nikklas Zenstromm’s giant couldn’t manage to get away from Andy Soriano’s “Alegre” though, which passed the Judel & Vrolijk designed 72 footer at the finish line after times were compensated, thus holding to the lead in the IRC A division, which covers the Mini Maxi class. Ran’s today’s good performance places him in the second place thus displacing Container to the third position. “Bella Mente” could only manage a second and two fourth places, and is now out of the podium positions.

https://bellamenteracing.com/bellamente/76/

Light winds postponed racing on Tuesday, but finally in the late afternoon heat and breezes under 10 kts, they were able to get off one race.  Bella fought back from her 4th position overall by taking a 2nd place today to ALEGRE pushing her up in the standings to 3rd place, just ahead of RAN.  With 9 points after 3 races, I’m sure the boys are focused on boat speed, boat speed, boat speed and gaining through today’s races with a better forecast predicted to get two races off.

Bowman Sean 'Doogie' Couvreaux at the first day start of Copa del Rey

Well, its a tough fleet out there.  We have matched up against many of these teams last year in the Med circuit, but old friends CONTAINER and ALEGRE came out shining in the first day of competition for the Copa del Rey.  It was reportedly extremely hot and with little winds which didn’t help either the 72 foot RAN or our BELLA MENTE team.  ALEGRE took the win for the first race and CONTAINER took first for the second race putting them in the 1-2 positions overall.  BELLA MENTE managed a 4-3 leaving them in 4th behind RAN.  There are 10 more scheduled races continuing on today, so anything could happen.  Stay tuned.