Good start for Percy and Mitchell

After day one of the Audi Star Worlds in Gaeta, Italy

Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell got off to a good start at the Audi Star World Championship at Gaeta, Italy with a win in the first race.

After a long postponement waiting for the wind to fill in, racing finally got underway for the 115 competitors in 12-20 knots of breeze. Trying to get the large fleet off was no easy task and after a general recall there was an individual recall, which caught out many of the top sailors at the event. Among them were American favourites Paul Cayard and Phil Trinter, the 2000 Olympic gold medallist Mark Reynolds and the reigning world champions Xavier Rohart and Pascal Rambeau of France.

Rounding the first mark in fifth place, Percy and Mitchell worked their way through the fleet, climbing to second by the next windward mark and finally taking the lead. They crossed the line first in front of Mark Mansfield and Killian Collins of Ireland and European champions Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom of Sweden.

Results

Pos	Sail	Crew	Tot
1	GBR8025	Iain Percy & Steve Mitchell	1
2	IRL8110	Mark Mansfield & Killian Collins	2
3	SWE8141	Frederik Lööf & Anders Ekström	3
4	SUI8085	Flavio Marazzi & Enrico De Maria	4
5	IRL8158	Maxwell Treacy & Anthony Shanks	5
6	ESP7581	Roberto Bermudez de Castro & Pablo Arrarte Elorza	6
7	BRA8109	Torben Grael & Marcel Bastos Ferreira	7
8	AUS8157	Colin Beashel & David Giles	8
9	DEN8179	Stig Westergaard & Dann Neergaard	9
10	NED8028	Mark Neeleman & Peter Van Niekerk	10
11	NZL8169	Rohan Lord & Andrew Taylor	11
12	USA8129	Mark Reynolds & Steve Erickson	103
13	POR8145	Alfonso Domingos & Bernardo Santos	12
14	ITA8180	Francesco Bruni & Guido Antar Vigna	13
15	GER8140	Marc Pickel & Ingo Borkovski	14
16	GRE8079	Leonidas Pelekanakis & George Kodogouris	15
17	BER7988	Peter Bromby & Lee White	16
18	FRA8107	Xavier Rohart & Pascal Rambeau	103
19	GER8016	Hubert Merkelbach & Oliver Vitzthum	17
20	ITA8014	Ferdinando Colaninno & Giuseppe Brizzi	18
21	GER7959	Alexander Hagen & Jochen Wolfram	19
22	NED8170	Roy Heiner & Alex Breuseker	20
23	CAN8168	Ross Macdonald & Mike Wolfs	21
24	ITA8029	Giampiero Poggi & Giovanni Stilo	22
25	AUS7836	Iain Murray & Andrew Palfrey	23
26	UKR8096	Vasyl Gureyev & Volodymyr Korotkov	24
27	AUT8204	Hans Spitzauer & Andreas Hanakamp	25
28	FIN8094	Jali Makila & Erkki Heinonen	26
29	ITA7827	Nicola Celon & Sergio Lambertenghi	27
30	GER8150	Michael Koch & Markus Koy	28
31	ARG7213	Julio Labandeira & Valentin Thomsom	29
32	GRE7980	Stayros Aleyras & George Stylianos	30
33	ITA7488	Roberto Benamati & Filippo Domenicali	103
34	SUI7990	Daniel Stegmeier & Beat Stegmeier	31
35	ITA8155	Paolo Semeraro & Vittorio Landolfi	32
36	HUN8166	Tibor Tenke & Jozsef Bendicsek	33
37	AUS8093	Michael Jones & Peter Merrington	34
38	IND7901	Mahesh Ramchandran & Nitin Mongia	35
39	CRO7955	Marin Lovrovic Jr & Marin Lovrovic Sr	36
40	ITA8197	Albino Fravezzi & Mario Salani	37
41	ARG8070	Juan Kouyoumajian & Austin Sperry	38
42	GER8033	Philipp Rotermund & Markus Mehles	39
43	UKR8153	Sergey Pichugin & Sergey Timokhov	40
44	ITA8190	Riccardo Simoneschi & Mario Marenco	41
45	ITA8040	Giulio Gatti & Corrado Cristallini	42
46	ITA8142	Enrico Chieffi & Agostino Sommariva	43
47	ITA8076	Luca Simeone & Leone Rocca	44
48	ITA8030	Pierpaolo Cristofori & Carlo Fogliazza	45
49	RUS8171	Georgy Shayduko & Nikolai Smirnow	103
50	ITA8090	Luca Filippi & Paolo Cisbani	46
51	RUS7798	Yuri Firsov & Sergei Kramskoi	103
52	FIN8073	Marko Dahlberg & Ville Kurki	47
53	GBR7943	Ante Razmilovic & Edmund Peel	48
54	ARG7316	Alejandro Chometowski & Manuel Bunge	49
55	LAT8135	Eizens Cepurnieks & Alexander Muzicenko	50
56	UKR8047	Eugen Avksentiev & Mykola Shapovalov	51
57	SUI8009	Christoph Gautschi & Uli Seeberger	52
58	ITA7881	Andrea Racchelli & Massimiliano Ferrari	53
59	NED7969	Roeland Wentholt & Gert Van Der Heidjen	54
60	NED7900	Pieter Jongerius & Freark Zandstra	55
61	AUT7481	Albert Sturm & Bernhard Rottner	56
62	SWE7978	Ingvar Krook & Erik Gamner	57
63	USA8159	Paul Cayard & Phil Trinter	103
64	ITA7237	Lucio Boggi & Andrea Tarabella	58
65	GRE7973	Theodore Tsoulfas & Jakovos Loudaros	59
66	SWE3342	Sune Carlsson & Benny Nilsson	60
67	ITA7941	Davide Degennaro & Stefano Pisciottu	61
68	ITA8183	Antonio Tamburrini & Renzo Ricci	103
69	SLO7888	Bostjan Antoncic & Gennadi Strahk	62
70	ITA8202	Paolo Nazzaro & Riccardo Marullo	63
71	ITA8182	Pietro D'Alì & Piero Romeo	64
72	SUI7645	Daniel Wyss & Brian Fatih	65
73	ITA7906	Marco Testa & Livio Giacummo	66
74	AUT7846	Ronald Palleschitz & Gerhard Weinreich	67
75	AUT8001	Andreas Öehlwein & Gert Matushek	68
76	AUT8123	Walter Passenger & Martin Kropfitsch	69
77	FIN8004	Joni Leeve & Timo Lamberg	70
78	ITA7958	Stefano Fusco & Alessandro Meloni	71
79	SUI7582	Roman Timm & Kaspar Huber	72
80	HUN8115	Peter Katay & Nazer Csaba	73
81	ITA8081	Renato Irrera & Federico Medolago	74
82	ITA8165	Salvatore Pisanelli & Massimo Fullone	75
83	GER7577	Christian Paucksch & Peter Andrä	76
84	SUI8133	Hans Stöckli & Axel Erbe	77
85	RUS8134	Alexey Lavrov & Alexander Kuleshov	78
86	GER7575	Hubert Rauch & Christian Conrads	79
87	ITA7528	Antonio Balderi & Amerigo Anguillesi	80
88	ITA7685	Nello Oliviero & Daniele Pisa	103
89	ITA8160	Marco Minghetti & Nicolas Moget	103
90	ITA7099	Pierpaolo Di Russo & Pierluigi Lucciola	103
91	SUI7319	Henrik Dannesboe & Antoine Lombard	103
92	ITA7339	Valerio Chinca & Massimo Ciano	103
93	GER7552	Klaus Kapper & Steffen Rutz	103
94	AUT7572	Andreas Denk & Wolfang Brenner	103
95	SUI7578	Marc Friederich & Paul de Wit	103
96	ITA7687	Riccardo Improta & Andrea Lupoli	103
97	FRA7714	Regis Berenguier & Vincent Berenguier	103
98	RUS7805	Vitaly Tarakanov & Alexey Bushvev	103
99	USA7885	Claude Bonanni & Steve Cutting	103
100	ARG7909	Alberto Zanetti & Mariano Lucca	103
101	USA7995	George Szabo & Christian Finnsgard	103
102	DEN8101	Niklas David Holm & Claus Olesen	103