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Roma wins 2007 Trofeu Quebramar-Chrysler

Saturday, 1 September 2007: Roma, the Italian GP42 boat owned by Filippo Faruffini and helmed by French America's Cup sailor Sébastien Col, won this year's edition of Trofeu Quebramar-Chrysler, held in Cascais, Portugal. Despite being the fleet's oldest boat, Roma clearly showed it was on par with the other yachts, both in the first day's strong conditions as well as the second day's lighter and trickier breeze.

On Thursday, opening day of the event, Roma scored two seconds and a first, dominating the fleet together with fellow Italian Seawonder 007. The breeze Cascais is famous for made its presence felt and the GP42 fleet was powered up by the 20 knots of the northwestern winds. Friday was definitely lighter and the two conflicting winds over Cascais resulted in a much more complicated and unstable race course, especially during in the second and third race of the day. Still, and despite a fifth place in the day's first race, Roma extended their lead with a second and first in the remaining races. On Saturday, unfortunately, the lack of wind cancelled all races.

The Italian boat had an average performance at the start of the season but the optimization work carried out in the last couple of months paid its fruit in Cascais. Roma finished second in Cres, although just three boats took part in that event. At the Trofeo de la Reina Roma finished fourth while at the Copa del Rey problems with the boat's setup lead to the Italians reaching the middle of the leaderboard.

The bottom line is that with the adequate optimization, the fleet's oldest boat can easily win an event in the GP42 class.


 

Quotes

Filippo Faruffini, owner of Roma and president of the GP42 class: I’m very happy because we have finally been able to optimize the boat after the initial problems we encountered in the Copa del Rey in Palma. They are now behind us. The boat is as fast as the rest and we are obviously delighted we finished first. The Cascais race area has been very difficult for everybody and we were lucky in yesterday’s races.

Our helmsman Sébastien Col was excellent but so was Paolo Cian. It’s impossible to declare if one is better than the other. I think we were following a wrong direction in Palma till the 3rd day. We returned to our previous direction and we have obviously improved. Our crew is undoubtedly of a very high level.

One shouldn’t forget that Roma is the first and oldest boat of the GP42 fleet and I feel extremely happy, as her owner and president of the GP42 class. Firstly, it’s always nice to win an event and secondly a 2005-generation boat being equal to the 2007-generation ones is a very positive fact for the class. It’s a proof the boats have a long life and this is something we were aiming at. It’s very positive.

I signed earlier today a contract with Farr design for a brand new boat, because my aim is to have a 2-boat campaign if I get sufficient sponsor funding. In the GP42 class you don’t need to build a new boat each year in order to be the champion of the circuit.

 

Photos

Check the photos from the Trofeu Quebramar-Chrysler here.

 

Final Classification of the Trofeu Quebramar-Chrysler (6 races, no discards)

1. Roma 2+1+2+5+2+1 13 points
2.Quebramar-Chrysler3+3+4+1+5+218 points
3.Canarias Puerto Calero5+2+3+2+3+722 points
4.Seawonder 0071+5+1+3+7+623 points
5.Zurich4+4+5+4+6+427 points
6.Quum Marketing7+6+6+7+1+532 points
7.Fermax6+9+9+6+4+337 points
8.AA-HPB8+7+9+8+8+848 points