Titles decided at 40th Copa del Rey MAPFRE | Marcus Brennecke’s ClubSwan 50 Hatari clinched the ClubSwan 50 class titles on the final race at the 40th Copa del Rey MAPFRE, but the German flagged crew endured some unnecessarily nervous moments after the nearest rivals Stefan Heidenreich’s OneGroup seemingly came back from the dead after being over the start line early.
From being a long way ahead of OneGroup, Hatari found themselves needing to cover their opponents to close out the prestigious title which last year eluded them on the final day by one single point at Mallorca’s summer showcase regatta.
“I am relieved, happy but relieved. We did not make it easy on ourselves and ended up having to keep a cover on them so it is good to win.” Smiled Marcus Wieser, German flagged Hatari’s tactician.
“We had to play it safe in the end which is a bit mad when we were third at the top mark and he was second to last, but we had to match them in the end. It was a good week, we have won three of the four events now this season, Scarlino, Sardinia and here but sadly not the Worlds and fourth at the worlds. I think last year we won the preliminary series last season and so this time we started defensively and caught up. It is a bit like match racing when you win the round robin and then lose the semi final.”
Brennecke said “Winning the Copa del Rey is great I am proud of the team and my son on board and I am very happy, it was close until the end in this great one design class.”
Hatari won by five points ahead of OneGroup which has Germany’s Jochen Schümann calling tactics whilst NiRaMo, of Sonke Meier-Sawatzki which had Cameron Appleton as tactician took third.
In the ClubSwan 36 fleet Giangiacomi Serena’s G Spot retained the title they won last year but this time they came from behind on the last day to overhaul Lorenzo Mondo’s Farstar which led the event from Day 2. A second with Farstar fifth was enough to give G Spot the overall win by a single point.
“We had our best race on the last day. We were in front of Farstar and managed to put one boat between us and them and that was enough.” Said Michele Paoletti, G Spot’s winning tactician, “It was much harder this year. The level in this fleet has gone up so much in a year it is incredible.”
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Article was written by Copa del Rey MAPFRE // Full story here.