Kuka Light vince la Lombardini Cup

Vincere la Lombardini Cup è per noi motivo di grande gioia, specialmente per la motivazione con la quale è stata a noi assegnata. La giuria composta dall’inossidabile Cino Ricci, dal giornalista Rai Giulio Guazzini e dall’Ing. Luigi Aldini, ideatore della Lombardini Cup ha deciso di assegnare la coppa a noi con la seguente motivazione:

It Pays to be fast!

Last weeks Rolex Middle Sea Race was a slow event, however upon our return to the marina at Excelsior Hotel Malta we discovered there was a Russia Beauty contest in progress. Our Kuka Light crew were very pleased to be one of the first teams to finish and provide our boat to the girls for some happy snap shots before they returned to fast approaching Russian winter.

Palermo Montecarlo: the first regatta of Kuka Light.

Just to be in the starting line of the regatta was a victory for us.
As any Sailing Anarchy reader knows in the end of June we broke the mast, so in a very short time we needed to understand the problem that caused this failure and built a new half mast. Our friends in Sweden at Marstrom worked in shifts to be able to finish the masttop in time.
Under the ligurian sun we glued the mast together and sailed to Palermo, I will not tell about all other small issues we faced before the regatta, all typical things which happen to a new boat, especially when it is so different as Kuka-Light is.
Palermo-Montecarlo was a strange regatta as there was wind only in the first 6 hours of race. After it we never had more than six knots, often zero knots for hours with hot sun.
Nevertheless the boat performed really fine and in the first hours of race showed its true potential.
We finished third, with the first three boats sailing on completely different routes. So it is not possible to have any real comparison. We hope that in the next regattas we will have more information about our potential compared to other boats.

Kuka-light withdraws from Rolex-Giraglia

Kuka-Light is a real lady. As she did not have the right dress and the make-up was not perfect she decided not to make her entry in the high society of sailing. With a bit more of time we are sure that she will be able to participate to the next appointement, the race Palermo Montecarlo.

The team

First sea trials of Kuka

The whole week we sailed with Kuka-light. As Kuka-Light is a prototype we had a lot of small things to fix, but we had no major issue. We tested the canting keel system and the electronics, validate the sails, and tried to understand the potential of the boat, but in this matter only a race will tell the truth. What I liked is that the boat feels a bit like a catamaran in downwind sailing.