2010 Congressional Cup

[Stuart Streuli]

Bruni sweeps into semis with Berntsson, Brady

LONG BEACH, Calif.

Francesco Bruni's sailing world turned in the 46th Congressional Cup Thursday when the Azzurra team skipper from Italy swept five races to join defending champion Johnie Berntsson and four-time winner Gavin Brady in Saturday's semifinals, as Bill Hardesty of San Diego slipped into position to claim the fourth slot.

In the steadiest breeze of the week---8 to 12 knots from the southwest---the springboard for Bruni was a morning hearing that cost Berntsson his bid to keep Wednesday's apparent win over the Italian in the runaway mark incident.

Instead of sinking to 6-5, Bruni then beat Berntsson in the re-sail by a comfortable 27 seconds after Berntsson's sluggish start, then dispatched, in order, Switzerland's Eric Monnin, Wisconsin's Sally Barkow, Italy's Simone Ferrarese and Hardesty to sit at 11-4, two points behind Berntsson and Brady, now tied at 13-2.

Brady beat Iehl by 15 seconds in the other re-sailed match.

None of that ruined Hardesty's 2-2 day but likely just delayed his clinching the last semifinal slot. At 9-6, the first-time Congressional Cup skipper needs only to win two of the last three matches of the double round robin against non-contenders Friday, even if fifth-place Dave Perry (8-7) sweeps his remaining slate. Hardesty owns the tiebreaker with his win over Perry in their second match.

Following his 5-1 record a day earlier, Hardesty opened Thursday by dealing Brady only his second loss of the week. Later he overtook France's Damien Iehl in a flag-waving, come-from-behind frenzy that got Iehl disqualified when he failed to do any penalty turns after two quick side-by-side fouls downwind.

The on-water umpires, showing little patience, flew first one, then two blue flags---Iehl's ID color---then a black one in the array.

Despite slipping to fourth place behind Bruni on the day, Hardesty was happy with that. "We just wanted to be in the top four," he said.

Berntsson, the week-long leader, pushed Brady hard but carried a pre-start penalty into a decisive skirmish at the windward mark. Brady broke off their luffing match and brushed the mark as he fell off to round it. That offset Berntsson's foul, but the latter remained stalled for several seconds until Brady was gone.

But Bruni, runnerup to Berntsson last year, may now be the one to watch.

Bruni said the re-sailed win against Berntsson "was a good start of the day. But we don't want to relax."

Racing will continue through Saturday, starting at 11:30 each day, conditions permitting. Each boat will race every other boat twice in a double round robin. The top four will advance to best-of-three semifinals and finals Saturday. The non-qualifiers will run a fleet race.

The racing is in the Long Beach outer harbor off Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier, with free grandstand seating and parking for spectators. Snacks and refreshments are available.

Notes

Those watching the race on video or on site may have noticed that 2 of the 10 boats are sailing with seven crew members instead of the usual six---and one is not Sally Barkow's team. She has only one other woman, Genny Tulloch. Italy's Simone Ferrarese and Switzerland's Eric Monnin have one more pair of hands than anyone else because they went for smaller guys whose combined weight slipped under the limit of 1,157 pounds---Ferrarese at 1,151 and Monnin at 1,124. . . . Monnin, by the way, was not part of Alinghi, the Swiss defender of the America's Cup that lost 2-zip to BMW Oracle, the U.S. defender with only two Americans on board (tactician John Kostecki and owner Larry Ellison). But, Monnin said, "My brother was on the design team." And if you thought the rest of the world was turned off by the marathon clash of lawyers, Monnin said, so were the Swiss---maybe more so. . . . Principal race officer Pete Ives started to read the day's weather forecast at the morning skippers meeting: "Wind from north to northwest around 10 knots . . ." Then he crumpled the paper into a wad and tossed it over his shoulder. That didn't sound like Long Beach at all, although a good breeze did switch to dying northwest zephyrs out of downtown late in Tuesday's racing. "It's going to be the way it was [Wednesday]," Ives said. It was even better.

The Congressional Cup has maintained a high level of organization over the years with a volunteer force of some 300 club members and their families. Each crew is assigned boat hostesses and a housing team to deliver the outstanding local hospitality the Congressional Cup has offered now for 45 years.

Spinnaker sponsors are F&M Bank, the Press-Telegram and Oceanaut Watches. Sails sponsors are MCA Logistics, Gladstone's Restaurant, Newmeyer & Dillion and Union Bank. Hospitality sponsors are The Port of Long Beach, St. Mary Medical Center, City National Bank, The Breakers of Long Beach and Mount Gay Rum. An Honorary sponsor is Catalina Yachts.

Results

FLIGHT 11 (re-sails)
Francesco Bruni, Italy, def. Johnie Berntsson, Sweden, 0:27.
Gavin Brady, New Zealand, def. Damien Iehl, France, 0:15.

FLIGHT 12
Bruni d. Sally Barkow, USA, 0:23.
Dave Perry, USA, d. Iehl, 0:24.
Berntsson d. Ferrarese, Italy, 0:17.
Bill Hardesty, USA, d. Brady, 0:10.
Evgeniy Neugodnikov, Russia, d. Eric Monnin, Switzerland, 0:22.

FLIGHT 13
Iehl d. Ferrarese, 0:20.
Berntsson d. Hardesty, 0:10.
Brady d. Monnin, 0:23.
Neugodnikov d. Barkow, 0:30.
Bruni d. Perry, 0:29.

FLIGHT 14
Brady d. Berntsson, 0:30.
Barkow d. Monnin, 0:26.
Perry d. Neugodnikov, 0:19.
Bruni d. Ferrarese, DSQ.
Hardesty d. Iehl, DSQ.

FLIGHT 15
Monnin d. Perry, 0:13.
Neugodnikov d. Ferrarese, 0:26.
Bruni d. Hardesty, 0:15.
Berntsson d. Iehl, DSQ.
Brady d. Barkow, 0:11.

STANDINGS
(after 15 of 18 flights)

Tie between Berntsson and Brady, 13-2; Bruni, 11-4; Hardesty, 9-6; Perry, 8-7; Neugodnikov, 7-8; tie between Iehl and Monnin, 6-9; Barkow, 2-13; Ferrarese, 0-15.

[Stuart Streuli]

Brady leads Bruni, Berntsson, Hardesty into sailoffs

LONG BEACH, Calif.

Tag team sailing billed as the 46th Congressional Cup reaches a climax Saturday with four-time winner Gavin Brady leading a fearsome foursome into the semifinals.

Brady, with 15 wins and 3 losses in the double round robin, picked first-time Con Cup skipper Bill Hardesty (11-7) as his opening opponent in the best-of-three sailoffs, but the other match between Italy's Francesco Bruni---on a 10-race win streak at 14-4---and defending champion Johnie Berntsson of Sweden, also 14-4, stands to be just as lively, if not more so.

The winner receives $10,000.

Peter Shrubb, chief of the on-water umpire team, noted at the Friday night press conference that over the last two desperate days "we flew every colorful [penalty] flag we had in the boats out there … and some of the language was colorful, as well."

The blitz of disqualifying black flags continued whenever the sailing got too rough, although none of the semifinalists suffered that fate, and the sturdy Catalina 37s appear to be surviving their 20th year without serious damage.

The racing is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m., conditions permitting. The six non-qualifiers will run a fleet race around the outer harbor. Otherwise, the action will be off Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier, with free grandstand seating and parking for spectators. Snacks and refreshments are available.

Brady's pick of an opponent was no surprise. Hardesty has been primarily a small boat sailor more accustomed steering with tillers instead of wheels, although he quickly picked up a knack while winning 8 of his last 11 races.

On the other hand, Berntsson also has a Crimson Blazer, the traditional Con Cup prize, Bruni was runnerup here last year, and he and Brady were close to meeting for the title in the heavyweight Louis Vuitton Trophy event in Brady's hometown of Auckland, N.Z., earlier this month.

Bruni, leading team Azzurra, reached the semifinals while Brady, with Mascalzone Latino, reached the finals against winner Emirates Team New Zealand. Both are working toward the next America's Cup.

Brady also considered that "we got beat by all these guys once this week"---and Bruni beat both Brady and Berntsson Friday in typical Long Beach breeze of 7 to 10 knots from the southwest, despite having to switch pitman Pietro Mantovani with tactician Tom Burnham because of Mantovani's sore back.

Bruni said earlier, before Brady chose Hardesty, "It was a very good day. Who knows who we'll meet? We are ready."

Both Bruni and Brady jumped the start line after a furious pre-start session, but the Italian recovered better to win by a relaxed 32 seconds. Then he beat Berntsson by 10 seconds

Berntsson won his first eight races and was in first place until Friday when he lost to Russia's Evgeniy Neugodnikov (ouch!) and Bruni in a tough last race of the day.

"We feel quite well," Berntsson said. "We know where the problems are. Let's put it this way: We have some cards we haven't played yet."

Hardesty was probably feeling the least pressure.

"Actually," he said, "I haven't looked at the stats, but we beat [Brady] the last time we sailed against him … but if I were him, I'd pick me."

Finally, it's to be considered that while France's Damien Iehl (7-11) arrived in town ranked by ISAF as the No. 3 match racer in the world but didn't come close to reaching the sailoffs, Brady has a ranking somewhere in the hundreds because he hadn't sailed a standard match racing event since he won the Con Cup two years ago.

Surprisingly, he said back at the dock Friday, "We're the lowest ranked team here. We haven't made the progress we would have liked. We're going to have a steak dinner tonight and talk about it.

"This is going to be a very good finals. All of these guys are sailing fast and very skillfully."

Notes

Sally Barkow made a hasty exit from Long Beach after Friday's racing to fly to Palma on the Spanish island of Majorca to join the other two members of her women's match racing team for the Trofeo S.A.R. Princesa Sofia – MAPFRE. The regatta for the world's Olympic class campaigners in several classes starts Saturday. Anna Tunnicliffe, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in Laser Radials, may fill in for Barkow until she arrives, via Zurich. Barkow is competing in the new Elliott 6m class for women, and all of the best will be there. "It's all the same thing," she said after a week of racing Catalina 37s against male professionals. "It's still match racing . . . just a smaller, quicker boat with quicker moves. The racing is tougher here. Going against the guys, you make one mistake and they make you pay for it." Main sail trimmer Genny Tulloch will drive the C/37 in Saturday's Con Cup fleet race for teams that didn't reach the semifinals. . . . The fleet race winner receives $1,000, which should be worth an evening of winding down in the nightspots on nearby Second Street for the entire crew. . . . With his record of 1-17, Simone Ferrarese of Italy won the traditional but highly prized booby prize, Arthur Knapp's book "Race Your Boat Right."

The Congressional Cup has maintained a high level of organization over the years with a volunteer force of some 300 club members and their families. Each crew is assigned boat hostesses and a housing team to deliver the outstanding local hospitality the Congressional Cup has offered now for 45 years.

Spinnaker sponsors are F&M Bank, the Press-Telegram and Oceanaut Watches. Sails sponsors are MCA Logistics, Gladstone's Restaurant, Newmeyer & Dillion and Union Bank. Hospitality sponsors are The Port of Long Beach, St. Mary Medical Center, City National Bank, The Breakers of Long Beach and Mount Gay Rum. An Honorary sponsor is Catalina Yachts.

Results

FLIGHT 16
Francesco Bruni, Italy, def. Damien Iehl, France, 0:35.
Gavin Brady, New Zealand, def, Dave Perry, USA, 0:31.
Simone Ferrarese, Italy, def. Sally Barkow, USA, DSQ.
Bill Hardesty, USA, d. Eric Monnin, Switzerland, 0:26.
Evgeniy Neugodnikov, Russia, d. Johnie Berntsson, Sweden, 0:21.

FLIGHT 17
Perry d. Ferrarese, 0:04.
Hardesty d. Barkow, 0:06.
Berntsson d. Monnin, 0:29.
Bruni d. Brady, 0:32.
Iehl d. Neugodnikov, 0:16.

FLIGHT 18
Perry d. Barkow, 0:50.
Monnin d. Ferrarese, 0:02.
Neugodnikov d. Hardesty, 0:05.
Bruni d. Berntsson, 0:10.
Brady d. Iehl, DNF.

FINAL ROUND ROBIN STANDINGS
Brady, 15-2; Bruni, 14-3; Berntsson, 14-3; Hardesty, 11-7; Perry, 10-8; Neugodnikov, 9-9; Monnin, 7-11; Iehl, 7-11; Barkow, 2-16; Ferrarese, 1-17.

[Stuart Streuli]

Bruni beats Brady and Berntsson for the Blazer

LONG BEACH, Calif.

Francesco Bruni and his team Azzurra crew squeezed the last bit of breath out of the 46th Congressional Cup Saturday to outsail Gavin Brady, 2-1, and deny the four-time winner an unprecedented fifth Crimson Blazer in the only Grade 1 Open match racing regatta in the United States.

Instead, it was the affable Italian who donned the traditional prize after reveling in a champagne shower and a proper dunking at the dock that blew off the tension of a hard-earned victory.

"We were very scared, especially after the score was one to one," Bruni said, fearing that Mother Nature would rule the day beyond all of his sailing skill.

Unusually capricious conditions for the venue bedeviled the four semifinalists with a simmering offshore Santa Ana desert breeze arriving at 18 knots from the east. Later, after one round of racing parallel to the sand-blown beach, the wind switched to 150 degrees onshore from the southwest but dropped to 7 knots.

Azzurra, an Italian team with America's Cup ambitions, hung tough, although pushed to the limit of three races by defending champion Johnie Berntsson in the semis and by Brady in the final.

Bruni will share his $10,000 prize with his crew of Tom Burnham, tactician; Ben Durham, main sail trimmer; Pierluigi De Felice., trimmer; Pietro Mantovani, pit and trimmer, and Matteo Auguadro, bow.

"We worked hard to win it," said Bruni, who lost 2-0 to Berntsson in last year's title match. "We weren't very focused … and this year we were this close to losing. We're really happy."

The title turned on another reversal of the Long Beach norm: the left side of the course was favored. Before each of their three starts Bruni and Brady fought hard for that privilege in last-minute luff-ups below the line, and the boat that started to leeward with a direct shot at the pin end of the line won every race: Bruni by six seconds, Brady by 2 minutes 22 seconds and Bruni again by 1:29.

In the first final match Brady, who had eliminated Bill Hardesty 2-0 in the semis, even forced a foul on Bruni, but the latter built enough of a lead by going left to drop his spinnaker and do a penalty turn around the pin at the finish.

"It was all about winning the left," Bruni said.

Eric Monnin of Switzerland won the fleet race around the harbor the competitors who failed to reach the finals.

The Congressional Cup has maintained a high level of organization over the years with a volunteer force of some 300 club members and their families. Each crew is assigned boat hostesses and a housing team to deliver the outstanding local hospitality the Congressional Cup has offered now for 45 years.

Spinnaker sponsors were F&M Bank, the Press-Telegram and Oceanaut Watches. Sails sponsors are MCA Logistics, Gladstone's Restaurant, Newmeyer & Dillion and Union Bank. Hospitality sponsors are The Port of Long Beach, St. Mary Medical Center, City National Bank, The Breakers of Long Beach and Mount Gay Rum. An Honorary sponsor was Catalina Yachts.

Final results

ROUND ROBIN STANDINGS
1. Gavin Brady, New Zealand, 15-2.
2. Francesco Bruni, Italy, 14-3.
3. Johnie Berntsson, Sweden, 14-3.
4. Bill Hardesty, USA, 11-7.
5. Dave Perry, USA, 10-8, $3,500.
6. Evgeniy Neugodnikov, Russia, 9-9, $3,100.
7. Eric Monnin, Switzerland, 7-11, $2,700.
8. Damien Iehl, France, 7-11, $2,300.
9. Sally Barkow, USA, 2-16, $1,900.
10. Simone Ferrarese, Italy, 1-17, $1,500.

SEMIFINALS
Bruni def. Berntsson, 34 seconds.
Berntsson d. Bruni, 0:51.
Bruni d. Berntsson, 0:01.
(Bruni wins series, 2-1).

Brady d. Hardesty, 0:09.
Brady d. Hardesty, 1:23.
(Brady wins series, 2-0).

FINAL
Bruni d. Brady, 0:06.
Brady d. Bruni, 2:22.
Bruni d. Brady, 1:29.
(Bruni, $10,000, d. Brady, $6,000, 2-1)

PETIT FINAL
Berntsson d. Hardesty, 0:20.
Berntsson d. Hardesty, 0:09.
(Berntsson, $5,000, d. Hardesty, $4,500, 2-0).

[Stuart Streuli]

TEAM AZZURRA WINS THE CONGRESSIONAL CUP

Team Azzurra of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda yesterday won the 46th Congressional Cup, world renowned event organized by the Long Beach Yacht Club which each year attracts some of the best match racing skippers. This is the only ISAF Grade 1 match racing event held in the USA.

Francesco Bruni, skipper of team Azzurra, was able to overhaul 2:1 defending champion Johnie Berntsson (Sweden) in the semifinals. Then in the finals Bruni defeated, with another intense 2:1 duel, New Zealand’s Gavin Brady, skipper of Mascalzone Latino Audi Team and four time winner of the Congressional Cup.

Bruni was able to conquer this important victory thanks to the great performance of his crew which included Tom Burnham, Pierluigi De Felice, Matteo Auguadro, Pietro Mantovani and Ben Durham, under the watchful eye of coach Marco Mercuriali.

At the end of the finals, Bruni commented: “I am so happy for this success, the guys did an amazing job. Team Azzurra earned this victory thanks to all the hard work and long training hours that we put in during the winter and the merit also goes to our coaches. Hard work bears its fruits and this victory is especially sweet to me, after last year’s second in this same regatta. Once again the Congressional Cup confirmed its status as best grade 1 match racing event of the season. The organizers do an amazing job and on behalf of team Azzurra I wish to thank the Race Committee, the staff and the volunteers of the Long Beach Yacht Club, who put so much work into this event and, on top of that, not only do they host the teams but they also put together some great parties! Next on team Azzurra’s schedule is the first event of the World Match Racing Tour 2010 which will take place from 6 to 11 April in Marseille, France.”

The ten crews who competed in the Congressional Cup 2010 sailed two complete due round robins, where Bruni finished second, one point behind leader Brady. At the end of the round robins, the top four skippers advanced to the best-of-three semifinals (Bruni defeated Berntsson 2:1, Brady defeated Hardesty 2:0), followed by the best-of-three finals (Bruni defeated Brady, 2:1). In the petit-final Berntsson beat Hardesty 2:0, while the remaining teams sailed a fleet race.

Standings

1. Francesco Bruni (ITA)

2. Gavin Brady (NZL)

3. Johnie Berntsson (SWE)

4. Bill Hardesty (USA)

5. Eric Monnin (SUI)

6. Damien Iehl (FRA)

7. Evgeny Neugodnikov (RUS)

8. Sally Barkow (USA)

9. Simone Ferrarese (ITA)

10. Dave Perry (USA)

Official website of the Congressional Cup 2010 http://www.lbyc.org/html/content.cfm?CID=1170

For further information please contact the press office or visit www.azzurra.it