Lebrun, sailing with consistent composure, answered Colaninno’s morning victory with a race win of his own in the afternoon to preserve a narrow advantage. Italy’s Arkadii Kistanov moved back up to second overall with a solid day, while Estonia’s Deniss Karpak sits third.
The fleet of 111 sailors from 20 nations waited ashore while an inversion layer delayed the arrival of the thermal breeze. When racing did get underway, the sea breeze gradually filled in and veered right throughout the afternoon, prompting mark changes and challenging decision-making.
Race 5 took three attempts to start under the black flag, with ten sailors disqualified before the fleet finally got away in 9–11 knots. Colaninno led from the start, rounding the top mark ahead of Switzerland’s Simon Bovay and Italy’s Roberto Strappati, before extending away to take a clear victory. Kistanov and Lebrun worked their way through the fleet to finish second and third.
“Today I finally had a much better day compared to the other days,” said Colaninno, who is back in the Finn after more than two years away from the class. “I was probably just a bit rusty since I haven’t sailed the Finn for a couple of years, so now I’m warming up and understanding how it’s done, so yeah I’m feeling much better and hopefully tomorrow the wind conditions will be the same.”
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Race 6 saw Nick Craig of Britain nail a port tack start to cross the fleet, but unstable wind across the course made it difficult to convert the early gain, and he rounded the first mark deep in the pack. Portugal’s Filipe Silva rounded first, ahead of Lebrun and Switzerland’s Christoph Burger.
Lebrun made his move downwind and built a lead he would not relinquish, though there was confusion near the top of the second beat after a mark change placed the buoy close to shore.
“The wind was shifting a bit and some boats were always trying to head for the shore to get the better shift so it was definitely an interesting day,” said Lebrun. “Thankfully, in these conditions, I was pretty fast downwind, it was free pumping, with a bit of waves, so I was able to have a good first race and then the second race was a bit more tricky, because we had a mark changing for the last upwind leg and to be honest at first, I couldn’t find the mark so I tried to stay in the middle, and then I finally found the red mark and I was able to win the race.”
Lebrun was also quick to praise race management. “I think the race committee did an amazing job today. We started today with some waiting on the shore and then when the breeze started building, we went on the water and we had just another perfect day of racing here in Naples, with two races and with the wind ranging in between 10 to 15 knots. We had two races with free pumping.”
“There are still four races to go with less wind forecasted for the next two days. So let’s see what happens,” he added. “But I must say the race committee did a fantastic job and we managed to sail nice races and I think that’s what we’re looking for in the Finn class. The start line is huge because we’re all sailing in the same fleet and every race is more than an hour long, so it’s very good racing.”
Top 10 After Six Races:
- Valérian Lebrun (FRA) – 11 pts
- Arkadii Kistanov (ITA) – 14 pts
- Deniss Karpak (EST) – 22 pts
- Federico Colaninno (ITA) – 32 pts
- Alessandro Marega (ITA) – 32 pts
- Lawrence Crispin (GBR) – 39 pts
- Laurent Hay (FRA) – 44 pts
- Rob McMillan (AUS) – 44 pts
- Filipe Silva (POR) – 46 pts
- Kristóf Kaiser (HUN) – 56 pts
