Pantanal 25 Dark Ice wins her first championship

Good news from the Pantanal 25 class arrived this week.
On the February, 7th was scheduled the prize award party for the 2008 Santos (the most important Brazilian port) Ocean Racing Championship. Guess which boat was the most awarded that night?

If you bet it was the Pantanal 25 Dark Ice, the first boat of this promising class to be launched in Brazil, you hit the nail on the head.
Yes, it was exactly Dark Ice, that very boat making her debut in the racing scene and which performance was still to be seen, crewed by a team of novices who had yet to discover how this new design behaved, learning about her abilities along the racing course.

And it wasn’t little what was learned! They discovered that her speed was simply fantastic in light winds, capable of overtaking the whole local fleet, regardless of the size of the competitors.

When sailing in fresher winds, she still sailed fast, but in those conditions water line length prevailed and Dark Ice didn’t manage to beat the larger boats.

In short: even though she only began to participate in the series already in its fourth race, she managed to win the championship one race before the last one.

The 7th of February was a busy day for the owner and builder of Dark Ice, Jorge Intaschi. Early in the morning he had an appointment with a racing sailor from Brasilia who had come to Santos just to get to know the Pantanal 25.

Before taking his guest out to sail, Jorge went with him to Coopermarine, the manufacturing co-operative engaged in series producing the Pantanal 25. By sheer luck the factory was giving the finishing touches to a motor yacht which would be delivered to Brasilia, the visitor’s town, in the next few days, demonstrating to the potential client the high standard of the factory workmanship.
In another coincidence, the first Coopermarine client for a Pantanal 25, the yachtsman from Sao Paulo Marcelino Magalhães was also visiting the factory, bringing with him a very special red gel-coat he had chosen to apply on his hull. All that fuss around the co-operative’s new venture deeply impressed the Brasilia’s citizen, and he was counting the minutes to go to the marina and finally getting to know the boat he was so anxious to try.

A few days earlier the locally prestigious Brazilian magazine Revista Náutica had tested Dark Ice for one of its regular evaluation reports. That day the reporters suggested changing the appointment for another occasion, with a more reliable wind, believing that with the ghostly wind of the day the boat wouldn’t move. To their surprise, however, they discovered that Dark Ice jumped ahead with incredible acceleration at the lightest puff of wind, showing them that they needn’t be worried about accomplishing the test.
This Saturday the wind conditions were no different: light puffy winds from various directions.. Jorge Intaschi’s guest took the tiller and stayed there for the next six hours, marveled with the speed of the boat and her easiness to be controlled. It wasn’t surprising that he confirmed the order for a Pantanal 25 to race in Paranoá Lake, the sailing ground of the country’s capital.

When the test-drive finally satisfied Jorge’s guest, our host invited him to participate in the prize awarding party for the 2008 Santos Ocean Racing Championship. This was the high-light of the Pantanal 25 class prestige that day. That almost unknown model stole the show, and that evening she was the boat which won more prizes, stirring the most varied gossips about her performance among the participants in the event..

No wonder Jorge and his crew were very happy and the visitor deeply impressed with such interest in the new design. To crown it all a yachtsman from Niteroi, the Rio de Janeiro’s neighbour city, confirmed his order for another Pantanal 25 to be built by Coopermarine. Jorge, perhaps because of high adrenaline triggered by such sudden success, also announced his intention in building Wave Runner, his next Pantanal 25.

This was the hot news direct from Sao Paulo, the most important Brazilian state and nautical centre.
Meanwhile, our client Danial D’Angelo, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, is begining the construction of a Pantanal 25, which should be ready in six months time. As he is an experienced amateur boat builder, for he was the first to finish the construction of a Samoa 28, of which there are dozens in construction in various countries, there is little doubt he will succeed in keeping his time-table. While all the others are still building their Samoas 28, Daniel is enjoying his lovely Sirius, cruising with his family around the River Plate, between Argentina and Uruguay.

With boats being built in a dozen different countries, from Sweden to Australia, and with the first ones already sailing, after Dark Ice’s demonstration of competence in the racing field, we have all reasons to believe that very soon the Pantanal 25 will become a popular international class.

Dark Ice crew commemorating being champions	Line Honours Award for Dark Ice first to finish position in the sixth race	Jorge Intaschi receiving the Santos Championship Trophy
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