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AZZURRA WINS THE 52 SUPER SERIES A DAY BEFORE IT ENDS

Cascais, Portugal, September 19th, 2015. Azzurra, the boat flying the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda’s burgee, has won the most competitive championship in pro sailing a day before it closes, crowning a winning season that already saw her win the TP52 World Championship in July.

Today’s is the tale of a sure, almost obvious, victory. Azzurra began the Cascais Cup, the final event in the 52 Super Series, with a 35 point advantage that has proved impossible for her adversaries to recover. Azzurra's strategy was to control her most direct rival, Quantum Racing, and to avoid damage to equipment which can happen easily in the difficult conditions at Cascais. In spite of precaution Azzurra today broke a gennaker on the final downwind leg.

Today's racing saw Azzurra fifth in a photo finish ending in the first race passed by the length of a bowsprit by Provezza. The second race was difficult for Azzurra because of the gennaker break mentioned earlier. Azzurra nevertheless managed to finished tenth thanks to a rapid recovery maneuver.

Azzurra's team showed that they really deserved the season victory with the excellent results they have gotten at Cascais. As of today they're 6 points behind Quantum. Tomorrow Azzurra, not content to have won the 2015 52 Super Series, intends to fight to win the Cascais Cup too. The will to win is never enough.

Guillermo Parada, skipper: “We have been working to win the season since the beginning of the year and today we have mathematically done that and nobody can take that away from us. We sailed better than the others and we deserved this win and we need to be proud and celebrate properly. As for today, we sailed far under our capability and we need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. A day like today gives even more value to yesterday’s results: you realize that winning is never easy. But still there are two more races to go and we’re six points away from winning this event. We need to finish on a high note and we will for sure.”

Vasco Vascotto, tactician: “A job well done! I really don’t think we could have done better in the 2015 season; we won both the World Championship and the Super Series in the most high-profile and competitive sailing Class. And on top of that we did it a day before the season officially ends even though today we broke our gennaker and came in 10th, our worst finish of the season. We have to take it in stride and concentrate on ending the Cascais Cup in the best of possible ways.”

Roberto Kercoc, Vice President of the Board of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda: “This is a real Grand Slam, Azzurra has won thanks to the strength of her team spirit and her team leaders who have make these positive results possible. The year 2015 has been fantastic and we won't soon forget it. It will remain written in the history of our Yacht Club. I would like to thanks the Roemmers, our members, on the part of the YCCS for their dedication, professionalism and passion thanks to which we have achieved these great results."

Tomorrow the warning signal is scheduled for 1:00 PM local time, 2:00 PM CEST time. Racing can be followed on the sites www.52superseries.com and www.azzurra.it in live streaming and updates from the course will be posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Contact:
Giuliano Luzzatto
Media Relations
Tel. +39 348 5966160
www.azzurra.it

52 Super Series - Cascais Cup dopo 8 prove
1 Quantum Racing, USA (Doug DeVos USA) (3,3,1,1,4,6,1,3) 22pts
2 Azzurra, ITA (Pablo/Alberto Roemmers ARG) (5,2,2,2,1,1,5,10) 28pts
3 Provezza, TUR (Ergin Imre TUR) (9,4,3,9,2,4,4,1) 36pts
4 Vesper USA (Jim Swartz USA) (1,6,4,3,10,8,6,2) 40pts
5 Platoon, GER (Harm Müller-Spreer GER) (4,5,7,6,3,3,7,5) 40pts
6 Alegre, GBR (Andres Soriano USA) (12,10,11,4,5,2,3,8) 55pts
7 Spookie, USA (Steve Benjamin USA) (2,1,8,8,13,13,12,4) 62pts
8 Sled, USA (Takashi Okura JPN) (7,8,9,5,11,7,9,6) 62pts
9 Bronenosec, RUS (Vladimir Liubomirov RUS) (6,9,6,10,7,9,8,7) 62pts
10 Gladiator, GBR (Tony Langley GBR) (8,7,12,12,9,5,2,12) 67pts
11 Paprec FRA (Jean-Luc Petithuguenin FRA) (10,11,10,7,6,10,11,9) 74pts
12 Xio/Hurakan, ITA (Marco Serafini ITA) (11,12,5,11,8,11,10,11) 79pts

Provisional Season Rankings - After Day 4 of Cascais Cup
1 Azzurra 168 pts
2 Quantum Racing 197 pts
3 Platoon 244 pts
4 Sled 250 pts
5 Bronenosec 251 pts
6 Alegre 254 pts
7 Provezza 255 pts