Serafino Barlesi and Francesco Calo racing their Banca Generali backed Victory built catamaran head to Larvik in Norway with such a healthy points lead that only a total disaster would deny the Italians their 2022 UIM 3D World Championship titles.

Saturday’s race in Tvedestrand probably proved to be the knock-out blow to Frenchman François Pinelli chances when gearbox failure reduced his progress to a crawl around the fjords after just two laps. To score any championship points he needed to complete over seventy per cent of the race but more importantly his last lap must have had an average speed of not less than fifty per cent of his fastest one.

Unfortunately for Pinelli his fastest average lap was 80.8 knots and his last one was thirty-five meaning he took away no points.

Barlesi knew that the sea had changed on the outer sections of the course. The one and half metre rolling sea state had gone, to be replaced with smooth water conditions. He also knew that Pinelli had the quicker boat more suited to those conditions, so he changed the balance of his catamaran and tried a completely different propeller set up.

The changes paid off, but he wasn’t entirely happy.

The twisty nature of the fjords can make forward visibility at over one hundred and twenty kmph a bit tricky, and although the race organisers had re set the course to allow the competitors and spectator boats a better chance of spotting each other Barlesi had to twice back off the throttles to avoid encroaching spectator boats.

With a course like this it’s almost impossible for the race organisers to cover the entire track, they do a very impressive job with over thirty marshal boats, but it only takes one or two idiots to think they can race us. Perhaps I sell them my boat and they can try again next year.

After the demise of Pinelli and Saul Bubacco, it was up to Alfredo Amato and Roberto Lo Piano onboard D-69 Marco to take the fight to Barlesi but they were more concerned about getting points on the table.

When Alfredo Amato spoke to PRW he said

The team have worked extremely hard to improve the boat, we all deserve that place on the podium. It’s a new boat for me and Roberto, this is just the fuel we need for the next race in Larvik. We are now ready to go after the other boats.

The penultimate round for the 2022 UIM 3D World Championship gets underway in Larvik on Thursday 14 July.

Photos by Chris Davies/PRW

Helicopter supplied by Helitrans, the country’s largest domestic helicopter companies with bases spread around Norway.