On October 30, the kick-off for the Club Under 19 Championship, the junior version of the Legavela Championship, took place at Crotone and was hosted by Club Velico Crotone. The program for the seven competing teams included a full day of training on Monday by Italy’s top J/70 sailors for the youth teams. Then, the teams sailed a round-robin format of racing over two days, just like the adult sailing league.
Day 1: Fifteen races were sailed in over 12 knots on the first day. At the top of the leaderboard were the hosts of the Velico Crotone Club (captain Matteo Verri, skipper Demetrio Sposato, Gaia Verri, Mattia La Greca and Beatrice Sposato). Thanks to winning seven of 15 races, they had a 40 point lead. Sitting in second with 55 points was Centro Velico 3V (captain Alessandro Franzì, skipper Riccardo Sepe, Gabriele Centrone, Alice Tamburini and Paolo Iacchia). Then, sitting in third with 60 points was Societa Velica di Barcola e Grignano (captain/skipper Maria Vittoria Marchesini, Matthias Menis, Zeno Tarlao, Alice Linussi and Nicolas Starc).
Day 2: On the race course, the Club Velico Crotone youth crew repeated their excellent performance. Comfortable with the sustained strong winds, they kept the results constant with mostly first places. As a result, the CVC youth U-19 team won the first Italian U-19 J/70 kick-off sailing league event. Second was Centro Velico 3V, and holding on to third place was Societa Velica di Barcola e Grignano. For more Italian J/70 Sailing League information, visit http://www.legavela.it/.