MELGES 32 WORLD LEAGUE: DONINO DOMINATES

North Sails Fuels Victory Through Tough And Exciting Racing

Luigi Giannattasio’s boat Donino (ARG) took gold at Event 3 of the Melges 32 World League after completing seven races in Riva del Garda. This is the team’s second victory in the Melges 32 World League 2019.

The team sails under the Argentinian flag of the owner Luigi and his son Pilu, but the rest of the team is a mix of nationalities: Kiwi, Russian, Italian, and Spanish. This event marked only their second time sailing together as a team, so we asked the winning tactician, Manuel “Manu” Weiller (ESP) how they became successful so quickly.

“The Melges 32 fleet is hugely competitive. With 19 boats all determined to win and very high level sailors, every race was exciting and tough! We used the MNi-5 3Di RAW Mainsail and the Mi-4 3Di RAW Jib.”

With medium winds all week thanks to the reliable Ora wind, Manu says they were always one of the fast boats. “Our team has the knowledge to get 100% out of our boat and how to sail fast in every situation. 3Di Raw and the Airex 650 spinnaker cloth have proven to be a great materials, very good for this size of boat. The Melges fleet is very familiar to Lake Garda, sailing here every year. For this regatta, the race course was much further south than normal, which opened up the game tactically a bit more.”

“3Di Raw and the Airex 650 spinnaker cloth have proven to be a great materials, very good for this size of boat.”

Asked what he thinks was most important to the win, Manu adds that “gains in this fleet are made by reducing the number of mistakes. Anticipating laylines to the next shift was the most challenging part.”

We look forward to watching the team onboard Donino at the World League Event 4 in Barcelona, Spain.

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