Taranto - Just a few more hours and it will be time for the Double Mixed Offshore World Championship: organized by Difesa Servizi S.p.A. and SSi Events in collaboration with the Marina Militare, with the support of the Municipality of Taranto and under the aegis of World Sailing, the event will see ten international crews battle on board as many Beneteau Figaro 3s along the 350 miles of a route that will begin and end of Taranto, where the organization found support from the local section of the Lega Navale Italiana and Molo Sant'Eligio.
A route that will be defined in the hours before the start, based on the most recent weather models, as the Event Manager of SSi Events, Tommaso Paleari, explains: “In the planning phase we thought of three different routes, designed to make the most of the dominant weather components in the stretch of sea involved in the Double Mixed Offshore World Championship. We have already started observing the situation and studying the bulletins for a few hours: the objective is to dissolve the reserve by tomorrow, to give the teams the opportunity to make their own tactical assessments in view of the start which, I remind you, is set for Wednesday".
Departure which will be preceded by a sort of trial regatta, still valid for the purposes of the general classification by virtue of the coefficient set at 0.22: scheduled for Tuesday and managed by the PRO of the event Fernando Gaballo, the warm up will involve the crews on a course of around 30 miles, assigning the first points and giving the teams the opportunity to become familiar with the boats which, we remind you, will be assigned by the organization by drawing lots.
Before the test regatta, the Regatta Village will welcome around forty students of the primary schools, as part of a meeting organized by SSi Events and the Municipality of Taranto which, on the occasion, will be represented by the Councilor for Public Education Fabiano Marti.
Coming to the protagonists of the Double Mixed Offshore World Championship, the participation of Team Scotland (Adamson-Calanach), Team Germany (Aalburg-Kennis) and Team Italy (Sericano-Zorzi) should be highlighted. These are the three crews which, due to experience and previous results, enjoy the favor of the forecast and towards which the attention of their opponents is concentrated: Team Sweden (Having-Malm), Team Norway (Book-Book), Team Poland (Hunter -Skrzyszowski), Team Southafrica (Robinson-Robinson), Team Argentina (Lazzari-Queirel), Team Spain (Alegre-Orti) and Team Great Britain (Driver-Kennedy). All in all, ten crews, representing as many nations and three continents, ready to enliven an event with marked international connotations.
Meanwhile, the opening ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday 3 October, at the Regatta Village located in Molo Sant'Eligio, partner of the event, which will be attended by Admiral Flavio Biaggi of the Southern Maritime Interregional Command, by the Councilor for Sport of the Municipality of Taranto Gianni Azzaro and Riccardo Simoneschi of SSi Events. Before the meeting, sailors will have the opportunity to visit the Aragonese Castle, a Byzantine work dating back to the end of the 18th century and enlarged by Ferdinand I of Naples towards the end of the 1400s.
Riccardo Simoneschi, leader of SSI Events, the 'sporting' soul of the organisation, underlines how "...double sailing is now a consolidated reality: never like this year have we received so many requests for participation, both at the European Women's Double Championship, which The World Doubles Championship has just ended, which will feature representatives from ten nations and three continents and for which we had to activate a waiting list which, in just a few hours, had up to five crews. Our history as organizers tells us that we were among the first to believe in and support doubles activities, both mixed and single-gender, and witnessing this exponential growth is a source of great satisfaction."