October 14, 2017

With very light and unstable winds on the second day at the XIII Raduno Vele Storiche Viareggio, the Evolution 5.5 Whisper, ITA 57 (Richard Leupold, Paolo Giorgetti,
Claudio Mazzanti) leveled the score by winning the only race from Tara, ITA 78 (Maria Cristina Rapisardi, Marco Bonzanigo, Giovanni Arrivabene) with Grifone, ITA 42 (Positano Onofrio, 
Garofalo Angelo, 
Merola Beppe) again third.

Grifone has a lot of pedigree in the class. A 1963 classic design from Einer Olson/Carl-Erik Ohlson, she was commissioned by Italian Navy and sailed by Agostino Straulino, a naval officer and one of Italy’s greatest sailors and a double Olympic medalist in the Star class. He took Grifone to fourth place in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and then won the world championship in 1965. Grifone is still owned by the Italian Navy.

Grifone showed much better speed than Friday, with the crew improving all the time. “
It's a very nice place and a fantastic organisation. Finally we can sail with the classic boats and with the 5.5
. It’s very technical racing because of the light winds.”

Fourth placed Artemis II, SUI 24 (Peter Kuss, Ingo Hopfgarder, Wolfgang Joebstl) is an Eugène Cornu design from 1957, and the joint oldest 5.5 Metre (alog with Violeta IV) competing in Viareggio. Since she was first built and registered in Switzerland, Artemis II has sailed under German numbers before ending up in Austria.

According to the crew today’s race was, “Good and interesting racing. This is our passion: vela, vento, vino!”

Racing in Viareggio concludes on Sunday.

Results after Day 2
1 ITA 57 Whisper 2,1
2 ITA 78 Tara 1,2
3 ITA 42 Grifone 3,3
4 Z 24 Artemis II 4,4
5 ITA 21 Violetta IV 5,5

Event website: https://velestoricheviareggio.org/