Monday, December 12^th, 2016

Bella Mente Training Session: Fort Lauderdale

Bella Mente, led by owner/driver Hap Fauth (Naples, Fla.) wrapped up a productive week of training in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this past week.  The training season completes the successful 2016 campaign by Fauth and his Maxi72 Crew with wins at the Quantum Key West Race Week, Maxi72 North American Championship in Newport, RI, Copa del Rey MAPFRE in Mallorca, Spain and the Rolex Maxi 72 World Championships in Porto Cervo, Italy.

This past week in Fort Lauderdale kicked off the start to a rigorous 2017 campaign where Fauth and Crew will spend the winter in the Caribbean and Summer in Europe.  The team reviewed the 2016 campaign challenges and successes and most importantly trained and planned for 2017. The team sailed 4 days off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.  Bella Mente now will be at home in West Palm Beach till early 2017 when the Maxi72 will move to the Caribbean. Fauth will kick off at the helm at the Caribbean 600 in Antigua on February 22^nd, 2017.

Terry Hutchinson

“Bella Mente just wrapped up a 5-day training session in Fort Lauderdale.  This time in isolation affords Bella the opportunity to work through lessons learnt form the season and map out our development in 2017.  In retrospect I could argue that this was one of our best sessions yet.  Great discussion with a lot of smart minds.  We know that the competition is not resting and with the new Botin 72 Cannonball Bella Mente has her work cut out in 2017.  As always applying a continual improvement approach in all areas of the program will allow us to develop.”

Mike Sanderson

“Our December session has now become part of the Bella Mente program for the past few seasons and I am a huge believer in it, whenever we are in full regatta mode there really isn’t enough time to try anything too “out of the box” … so the December session gives us an opportunity to be more adventurous with concepts and set-ups that we want to try.  Next season will be our sixth season in this hull, so we do have too keep pushing. Having now been back to back world Champions the target on our back will be even bigger next year and I have no doubt we are going to have our hands seriously full to stay ahead of the other guys…. But the Bella only knows one way and that is to be brave and fight for every inch.

I doubt any of the stuff that we tested this week we will end up running 100% with, that’s mainly due to the fact that during the December session our aim is to find “the edge” of the concept with the knowledge that we can then work back from there.

A Huge thank you from all your guys must go to our wonderful Skipper Hap Fauth, Hap is “the Man” and we all love being a part of Team Bella. Merry Christmas to everyone and Bring on 2017!”

Adrian Stead

“A great training session in Ft Lauderdale. 2 days of a solid 20 knots and good waves followed up with some light and medium air training.

Rob Ouellette

“This is the third year that we have had a training session in south Florida in an effort to get a jump on the season ahead.  Although sometimes tedious, every day we can spend on the water with Hap and the entire team is a gain for us and an advance on what we can learn about the boat, the sails and the setup.  This year we spent most of our time developing the sail inventory, with lots of time in the evenings spent at the sail loft making changes that will help us through all the 2017 campaign.  We are all looking forward to getting back on the race course in Antigua in February.”

(Photo Credits: James Lyne)

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