Favini Leads and Montefusco shines on Day three in Neustadt
Two more races were sailed today for the Melges 24 European Championship at Rolex Baltic Week in Neustadt, Germany. Five of the possible twelve races have now been completed and tonight Switzerland’s Flavio Favini continues to lead the regatta by eight points having scored a fifth and a tenth. Behind him it has been all change on the leader board as the demands of sailing in these difficult light to medium and shifting conditions took their toll on some and gave others the opportunity to shine – as Britain’s Rob Lark put it after a disappointingly consistent and unusually low 28, 28 score “It was a tough day at the office!”.
Today’s top performer was Italy’s Sandro Montesfusco with Cesar Bresan’s Airis Sailing Team (pictured above) who put in a stunning performance to win both of the day’s races and move up into second place overall with 29 points. Fellow Italian Lorenzo Bressani had mixed fortunes with a seventeenth in race four followed by a sixth in race five but, with everyone else suffering too, it was enough to move him up into third overall on 38 points. Estonia’s Tonu Toniste scored 20 and 3 to move up from ninth to fifth on 65 points while Britain’s Jamie Lea, helming Team Barbarians for Stuart Simpson, had a very tough day. Having held second place overnight he found himself the wrong side of the line and black flagged in race four and despite a fifth in race five he has dropped right down into 18th place.
