Fleet race start off Cagliari for the RC44s. Image copyright Gilles Martin-Raget/BMW ORACLE Racing.
by Bernard Schopfer
The world’s best skippers involved in the RC 44 Cagliari Cup participated this morning in the event’s opening press conference, held in the beautiful Antico Palazzo di Città, the city’s town hall, in the presence of the Mayor of Cagliari, Dottore Emilio Floris.
“I think this will be a tough event”, commented the Championship Tour leader Cameron Appleton. Winner of the season opener in Lanzarote last month, Team Aqua is not necessarily the favourite of the event according to its pro skipper: “The level is very high, and anyone can win. The courses are short, and it is easy to make small & costly mistakes. But we will certainly try hard.”
Tactician onboard BMW ORACLE Racing, Russell Coutts confirmed that “the level of the Class has never been as high as in this event, and everything is possible. The boats are identical; it is therefore the driver and the team who make the difference. I think that all the teams have a chance to win some races, and many teams can win the overall ranking. I certainly hope that we will do as well as we did last year.”
Christian Binder, the pro helmsman onboard Team Austria, is obviously in different spirits: his team will participate in its first RC 44 event this week. “We are here to learn, and to see where we stand compared to the rest of the fleet”, he said. “We hope to do well, but we also know that we will need some time to fight for victory. Our goal is to learn enough experience to put up a good show in our home waters next month.”
Chairman of the Yacht Club Cagliari, host of the regatta, Alberto Floris said that he was proud to have so many of the world’s best sailors in Cagliari. “It’s a honour to have them all here, and a great opportunity to show the world that Cagliari is one of the best venues for the sport of sailing.”
The official RC 44 Class logistics provider, DHL, recently announced that they will compensate the carbon footprint of the RC 44 Championship Tour and offset the carbon dioxide emission from transportation through their GoGreen program. This action, which is fully supported by the RC 44 Class, starts with the Cagliari Cup. The offsetting is based on a calculation which will be supplied by DHL Global Forwarding at the end of 2009. An independent audit will be made by SGS, and provided to the Class at the end of the season.
“Deutsche Post DHL is the No. 1 player in the logistics industry", said Steffen Frankenberg, Vice President Corporate Development, GoGreen Program. "As the leading logistics company we are making a concerted effort to be part of the global endeavour to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Through our climate protection program, GoGreen, we aim to improve efficiency in regard to the carbon emissions of our own as well as our subcontractors' operations by 30 percent by 2020. That means we will reduce the carbon footprint of every letter or parcel we ship and every square meter we use by almost one-third. Our partnership with the RC 44 Championship Tour is using a more carbon- efficient transportation solution and leverages our GoGreen carbon neutral service. It is a demonstration of how our business partners and customers who are also committed to addressing climate change can minimize their environmental impacts through more climate friendly logistics solutions."
The RC 44 Class announces a new partnership with PredictWind, one of the sharpest specialists in wind forecasts for top sailors around the world. In line with the Class’s desire to provide the best possible support to all the teams involved in the Championship Tour, this service is offered to all the teams and will give them the opportunity to benefit from a first class weather forecast.
The Cagliari Cup is organised by Yacht Club Cagliari, with the support of the City of Cagliari.
The teams involved
(Name of team, owner, pro sailor)
Team Aqua, Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton
Team Ceeref, Igor Lah / Sébastien Col
Sea Dubai, DIMC - Yousef Lahej, Markus Wieser
BMW ORACLE Racing, Larry Ellison / Russell Coutts
Team Organika, Maciej Nawrocki / Karol Jablonski
Puerto Calero Islas Canarias, José Juan Calero / Jose Maria Ponce
Artemis, Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Barker
No Way Back, Pieter Heerema / Philippe Presti
Team Austria, Christian Binder / René Mangold
RC44
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