1402 boats registered

Alfa Romeo II and Maxijena to compete for line honours in Sunday's Barcolana, the world's biggest single-start race

There are 1402 entrants registered so far for the Barcolana. The Yacht Club of Milan and Monaco will participate with Amer Sport Too, one of the splendid Volvo 60s that took part in the 2000/2002 Volvo Ocean Race. Lorenzo Bodini at the helm will race next to tactician Sten Mohr, second helmsman of BMW Oracle Racing and a match race expert. The team includes two other professional foreign sailors from BMW Oracle Racing and Marco Bodini, brother of Lorenzo, as strategist.

Meanwhile the number of big-boats participating in Barcolana 39 is increasing. Besides the six Farr 80, among which Banca Generali (Mauro Pelaschier at the helm), the Army (Cino Ricci at the helm, General Giovanni Ridinò on board, commander of Northern Italy Armed Forces) and Idrusa-Calvi of Paolo Montefusco, there are also Esimit, aiming at her sixth victory in the maxis, and TuttaTrieste that takes part in this edition of the Barcolana with Alta Badia sponsorship - an unusual way to promote the mountain region. Today Fly-Cometa registered for the race too. The boat owned by Riccardo Bonetti won in Barcolana in 2001.

The line honours race will be between Maxijena and Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo again. Mitja Kosmina's super maxi will come directly from Koper without mooring while the other maxi yacht is already at the Trieste waterfront.

"The aim is once again to win," says Kosmina, second in the last regatta. "We have worked a lot on the boat but in order to win we need shifty wind conditions, otherwise with constant wind conditions it is practically impossible to beat a yacht like Alfa Romeo 2 which is 7 metres longer than our boat".

Kosmina, is hoping for the Aeolus, a constant Bora on the first side of the course, a little lighter on the second and shifty gusts on the last leg, below the Karst cliffs, the final tricky part of the race which can be quite surprising. "With these conditions on the race course we could think of victory, maybe also using gennakers downwind, where we could have some advantage against Cricton's yacht". Kosmina's team will include tactician Branco Brcin, skipper Enrico Zennaro and a group of Italian, Slovenian and Croatian sailors who have already won in the Muggia-Portorose race this year.

According to the first information, not yet confirmed by local weather forecast services, on Sunday a light Bora wind should be blowing and will calm down during the morning, turning into a northwesterly. Strong winds will blow on Saturday night, so boats berthed along the waterfront should tie up adopting all safety measures so as to avoid the likelihood of collision.