Luna Rossa teams dominate first day of AC38 Preliminary Regatta in Cagliari with the Italian Women & Youth boat posting a 1, 2, 1 scoreline for a nine point lead.
Marco Gradoni, Margherita Porro, Giovanni Santi and Maria Giubile, took the lead from the get-go and even when Nathan Outteridge and Emirates Team New Zealand took race 2, they came back to snatch race 3, when ETNZ 1 crashed on the final leg.
The second Luna Rossa boat of Peter Burling and Ruggero Tita leads the chasing pack of ETNZ Women & Youth, the Swiss Tudor Team Alinghi and ETNZ all with 20 points.
The France La Roche-Posay Team are in sixth with 19 pionts, scoring a second place in the opening race, and two sixth places.
This left the two British teams propping up the leaderboard in seventh and eighth.
GB1 missed the first race with hydraulic power problems, tried to start race 2 but had to retire, and finally made it for race 3. where Dylan Fletcher went all out to finish a gutsy second.
The Women & Youth Athena Pathway team struggled in the increasingly windy conditions, and capsized on the final leg of race 2. They recovered for race 3 where they finished seventh.
Racing continues Saturday.
