- GBR41 Girls on Film win the 2021 5.5 Metre Alpen Cup
With just one more race sailed on Saturday, Peter Morton, Andrew Palfrey and Ben Cornish retained the 5.5 Metre Alpen Cup at Circolo Vela Torbole that they last won in 2019.
John B (BAH 22) of Gavin McKinney, Lars Horn Johannessen and Mathias Dahlman placed second while Momo (SUI 229) of Dieter Schoen, Fuitjof Kleen and Thomas Auracher was third.
Initially held on shore for an hour, the fleet was sent out in a bitterly cold 18-20 knots with some bigger gusts causing a few problems. There was plenty of action.
While Girls on Film kept their eyes on Momo and John B, Ali Baba (BAH 23) of Craig Symonette, Flavio Marazzi and William Alloway had the best of the very shifty first beat to round ahead and lead all the way to take the win.
Girls on Film followed in a comfortable second, which as it turned out, was enough to take the series win.
After the race finished, the fleet was sent ashore with not too many complaints.
There has been a lot of talk about Morton’s new boat (s).
He says it is not too dissimilar to the current fleet, but the second boat that he has been building, due to be launched in a few weeks, is a different story.
“GBR 41 is the first of the new boats. We tested it against our old boat (a 2003 Wilke from Switzerland), which we knew was reasonably competitive, so we were quite confident and this weekend has proved it’s a pretty good all round boat. I have to say that all the VPPs and CFDs we did indicated it would be better in a breeze.”
“We’ve yet to race against the Swiss boats in really light winds and that may be different, but certainly we were very comfortable here upwind and downwind.”
The second boat is also nearly finished.
“GBR 42 is something quite different again. That should be ready in about 4-5 weeks and then we’ll do some testing in the Solent. It’s quite different, a David Hollom design, and you know with David he has some definitive ideas.”
“Certainly all the testing we did, and the VPPs we did, indicate the boat will be stronger in a breeze over 10 knots, but it is quite different to all the other boats. So who knows? We’ll be in the penthouse or the outhouse I suspect.”
5.5 Metre Alpen Cup – Final Results after 6 races, 1 discard
1st GBR 41 Girls on Film – Peter Morton -5 3 1 2 1 2 – – 9 pts
2nd BAH 22 John B – Gavin McKinney 2 1 5 3 2 -6 – – 13 pts
3rd SUI 229 MOMO 5.5 – Dieter Schoen 1 -10 2 4 3 3 – – 13 pts
4th BAH 23 Ali-Baba – Craig Symonette -10 10 3 1 4 1 – – 19 pts
5th SUI 232 Marie-Françoise XXII – Jürg Menzi 3 2 -6 6 6 4 – – 21 pts
6th NOR 68 OTTO – Bent Christian Wilhelmsen -7 4 4 5 5 5 – – 23 pts
7th SUI 211 Forza del Destino – Prapopoulos George 6 -10 7 8 7 7 – – 35 pts
8th B 24 Ali Baba – Richter Wolf-Eberhard 4 5 -10 7 10 10 – – 36 pts
9th BAH 24 New Moon II – Mark Holowesko -10 10 10 10 10 10 – – 50 pts
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