The 420 World Championship has started today in Alicante with complicated wind conditions that only allowed the completion of one race in the two womens fleets, which were won by the Spanish Maria Perello and Marta Cardona and the Greek Iakovina Kerkezou and Danae Giannouli.

The Race Committees left punctually and after midday, when the first races were scheduled to start, the entire fleet was at sea. The wind, from the south, was not clean, with numerous windshifts and ups and downs of intensity.

Even so, in the women’s category it was possible to complete one race per group. In the yellow, the Balearic Perelló and Cardona, arrived in Alicante in the group of favourites, being youth world champions and 2022 Womensrunners-up and have shown their potential by winning their first race. While in the blue, the brand new European champions, Kerkezou and Giannouli, did the same, so that both crews lead the overall with one point each, after the first day of competition.

Second place is occupied by Brazilians Joana Gonçalves/Gabriela Vassel (yellow) and Catalans Nora García de la Casa/Mariona Ventura (blue). While third are the Croatians Noela Petesic/Petra Gambiraza (blue) and the Canary Islands Paula and Isabel Laiseca (yellow), who come to Alicante after being proclaimed world champions of the 29er in 2022 and in 2023 have decided to make the leap to the 420.

In the Men/Mixed fleets there were two starts for the Blue and Yellow groups, but finally the minimum racing conditions were not met and the Committee decided to suspend the race and at 15:20 hours, the Postponement flag was raised on A, which sent all the fleets to port, ending the day. Unfortunately the U17 fleets had no racing.

For tomorrow, Tuesday, the program foresees that the races will start at 12:00 noon, with a maximum of three races per day for each of the groups. 

The Final Phase will start on Thursday and will continue until Saturday, provided that a minimum of five races have been sailed in each of the categories.