Bella Mente Third in Copa del Rey MAPFRE; All Eyes Forward to World Championship
PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN (August 6, 2019) -- In a hard-fought three-way battle with Cannonball and Proteus, Hap Fauth’s (Naples, Fla.) Bella Mente wound up third in the Maxi 72 class at the 2019 Copa del Rey MAPFRE held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The six-day event, which concluded on Saturday, August 3rd, started with a four-day series (Monday, July 29th - Thursday, August 1st) comprised of seven races (one discard) that put Bella Mente in second place behind the Italian-flagged Cannonball. Then, in a unique twist on traditional scoring, Bella Mente was required to carry forward her resulting two-point score to be counted in her score line for the final racing series that saw three more races completed over two days (Friday and Saturday).
Bella Mente at the 2019 Copa del Rey MAPFRE.
(Photo credit: Bella Mente Racing/Andrew Palfrey 2019
“Afterposting finishes on Friday of 3-1 to Cannonball’s 1-3, we had a chanceto win it all going into the final race on Saturday,” said Bella Mente’stactician Terry Hutchinson, “but in order to do so we had to win the race. If Cannonballtook second, we would share the same score but beat them on countback in a tiebreaker.”
In the final race, the American-flagged Proteus becamethe spoiler, winning the final race to secure second overall, while Cannonballfinished second in the race to claim overall victory.
“BellaMente had spent five days at the end of June tuning against Cannonball andProteus,” said Hutchinson, explaining that Bella Mente’s primaryfocus now is September’s Maxi 72 World Championship, which Bella Mente has won three times. “To be successful at the Worlds in Porto Cervo, it is critical to knowour strengths and weaknesses against our competition, and both the tuning and the Copa del Rey Mapfre regatta helped us further to determine those, so it wasa good gain for Bella Mente.”
The Copa del Rey Mapfre wasthe first regatta to put the new Bella Mente (launched in September2018) and its 20+ crew members through their paces since they competed in the Wirth M. Munroe Miami to Palm Beach Yacht Race lastDecember. (For various reasons, Bella Mente had to bow out of competingin two Caribbean events and the Rolex Capri Sailing Week, which had originallybeen entered on its competition schedule.)
“It was good to set abase line for Bella Mente’s performance,” said Hutchinson. “To besuccessful in these boats, you have to develop in a smart manner. Cannonballis very fast and refined; Proteus and Bella Mente are muchcloser, but I would give a slight advantage to Proteus, especiallyupwind.”
Hutchinson added thatwhile the Bella Mente Racing team delivered on all aspects of shore-side andracing excellence, there is work to do in the areas of “consistently goodstarts” and “putting together” races from start to finish. “Theother boats are very well sailed and for Bella Mente, it means we havesome work to do, which is all good!”