Team VOLVO Wins Chile J/70 South Americans Qualifiers

(Algarrobo, Chile)- The third and final leg of the Chile J/70 Class qualifiers for the 2017 J/70 South American Championship that will be taking place from October 27th to November 1st was just completed.  Host for both events was Cofradía Nautica in Algarrobo.  The conditions for the weekend event were excellent, with moderate breezes on Saturday and 12-17 kts on Sunday in reasonably cool fall sailing conditions on the Pacific Ocean in Algarrobo Bay.  While there has been great skiing this fall just 150 miles away in the Andes Mountains, a group of fifteen boats were having an excellent time racing.  The courses were long, cold and choppy, so the crews need to manage the wave patterns, especially on port tack getting to the weather mark.  The wind was sometimes shifting right and sometimes shifting left at the very end of the course in the left corner, mostly close to the shore- very challenging for all crews, to say the least!

Going into the final weekend qualifier event, Matías Seguel’s VOLVO team had already a good lead over BLACK SAILS (Per Von Appen) and SENSEI (Carlos Vergara), but they wanted to further increase their lead.  Plus, the fleet saw the participation of Tito González (5 times Lightning World Champion and top J/24 sailor) at the helm of WILD SAILS, so it was a like mini-South Americans with most of the best skippers and crews of Chile sailing together.

Seguel’s VOLVO Team had a good performance on Saturday, but managed to close with a 2-2-1 on Sunday to win the regatta as well as the overall qualifying series.  Vergara’s SENSEI very talented team sailed well to take 2nd place over BLACK SAILS that was skippered by Dag Von Appen (he replace his brother who was sick). In 4th place was LEXUS skippered by Felipe Robles and fifth went to Pablo Amunategui and crew onboard BLACK JACK.

The next regatta for the Chilean J/70 fleet takes place on August 26 and 27 at the Cofradía Nautica Anniversary Regatta. What is exciting is the fleet in Chile is now composed by 27 boats and there are 4 on there way to Chile, so we expect to have 31 boats by the middle of July and hope we can get to 20 boats at the starting line on August 26th!  Then, everyone will be looking forward to the next regatta- the J/70 South American Championship held by Cofradía Náutica del Pacífico (October 27th to November 1st)! Add to Flipboard Magazine.


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