‘Jupiter’ leads the qualifying of the Puerto Portals Dragon Winter Series after the first round

The vessel of Ben Kolf gets advantage by four points in front of the Portuguese ‘Easy’ at the closure of the first round. The competition will take place again on December 12th.

The ‘Jupiter’, of Ben Kolf, leads the provisional qualifying of the 9th Puerto Portals Dragon Winter Series after the 5 races of the program. The Swiss boat adds 9 points and can already apply the first discard of the series, corresponsing in its case to a seventh position obtained in Saturday's session. Kolf's crew closed yesterday, Sunday November 23rd, with a fourth and a second place in the two celebrated races, results that allow them to preserve a minimum advantage upon their closest rival.

The ‘Easy’, of Michael Zankel, occupies the second place with 13 points. The Swiss team signed a third and fourth place in Sunday's races, a regularity that keeps them at 4 points from the leader. On their behalf, the 'Khalessi', of Nicola Friesen, has 20 points. A fifteenth place in the last regatta of the day stopped them from being discarded by their worst previous result, the twelfth on the third test.

The best boat of the day was for ‘Gingko Racing’, of Jan Ekert, that won both races and climbed up to the fourth position in the global qualifying after a session with no errors.

The second valid session of the Winter Series was developed, from 11 a.m., with southwest wind (250 degrees) with a stable instensity between 13 and 15 knots. The conditions allowed completing two races that served to close the first round of the competition. Participants could not sail on Friday due to wind excess, so the five qualigying races have been divided between Saturday and Sunday.

A total of 30 boats participate for now in this edition, that has three rounds with a maximum of 18 regattas. The following calls are programmed for days 12th and 14th of December and from the 23rd to the 25th of January. All the races take place in the windward-leeward fromat in the bay of Palma and with the possibility of introducing a second discard from the 12th race.

The organization will hand awards to the three first qualified of the overall category and to the best Corinthian team, that includes the non-professional crews.

The high presence of international teams of this season is linked to the preparation of the 2026's Dragon Gold Cup, that takes place in Puerto Portals the next month of March. This date, of 0 coefficient -same as an European or World Champs-, expects reuniting around 80 boats in its departure line and forms one of the main goals of the fleet that competes this Winter in Mallorca.

Puerto Portals is, thanks to its yearly focus in regattas such as the Winter Series and the Mediterranean Cup, the main base of the Dragon class in Spain.