Enzo De Blasio, Umberto Coppola, Nevio Sabadin, Andrea Ballico, Andrea Bussani, Andrea Coppola, Fabio De Simoni, Mario Prodigo, Tommaso Maria Maglione and Nikolaos Matteo Mascoli, on the Italia Yachts 11.98 Scugnizza, are the protagonists of the 40th Copa del Rey victory in ORC 3. “A regatta that is not easy, where sailors who have sailed three/four times around the world and many who have the experience to spare participate,” says Enzo De Blasio, by now accustomed to these successes but always enthusiastic about every single victory. “Already in the first races of the series we arrived at the end with a 9-point lead over the second (partials 1-1-1-1-1-5). Then in the second series, where you reset the points and start again with the score equal to the position in the standings, we struggled a bit and no longer held the lead as easily, but that didn’t stop us from finishing 15 points ahead of second and 18 ahead of third.” The 10 / 15 knots of wind and bright sunshine made all 11 races different and enjoyable and confirmed that the Copa del Rey is always a nice technical event on the water and social on land. Sin for Van De Jonge’s Italia Yachts 9.98 Immac Framm (Ger), which was within a step of the podium until the last race where only 0.5 points separated it from the third step, already conquered at the end of the first series, but a slip in the eighth position in the last race of the series relegated it to fifth place overall.
