Porto Cervo, August 12th, 2017 – Just one month to go for the first start of the most awaited monotype event of 2017, the Audi J/70 World Championship, which will be hosted in the facilities of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda from September 12th to 16th.
Registrations, which had to be closed more than two months before the start of the event, reached the record the record of one hundred and seventy-five participants representing twenty-four nations: numbers that make the Audi J/70 World Championship one of the monotype keelboats events most populous ever.
Among the entries, the Americans aboard Catapult will arrive in Italy to defend the title won last year: the owner and helmsman Joel Ronning will be assisted in tactical choices by John Kostecki.
In the large group of American boats, Savasana is also to be kept in the spotlight: owner Brian Keane, eighth in the San Francisco World Championship of 2016, will be entrusted with Stu McNay’s tactical calls: this tactician is already a 470 sailor for the US Olympic team and already won the World title in the Melges 24 Class in 2016 aboard Embarr.
There will then be the three crews on the podium of Hamble’s European Championship: Petite Terrible of the two-times continental champion Claudia Rossi, assisted in tactics by Olympian athlete Michele Paoletti; the Spanish Noticia by Josè Maria Torcida and Relative Obscurity by Peter Duncan. The American entry that came to Italy for the last event of the ALCATEL J/70 CUP season immediately came to success and aspires to do the same in the World Championship.
The Italian fleet will be the most represented with thirty-seven boats, followed closely by the German one, with thirty-one crews in the entry list.
Among the Italians, in addition to the already mentioned Petite Terrible, there will also be the winners of the 2017 ALCATEL J/70 CUP circuit on board Calvi Network, as well as the champions of the 2015 and 2016 editions of the same circuit, with L’Elagain of Franco Solerio.
The battle will also be launched in the Corinthian category, reserved to non-professionals: eighty crews will be in play to find out who will succeed in Shawn Bennett’s in the gold book. Among the favorites, there is also an Italian boat, White Hawk by Gianfranco Noè that, in 2017, did not miss a victory over the entire season ALCATEL J / 70 CUP.
