Audi MedCup Marseille Trophy, 12/06/2009. Image copyright Ian Roman/Audi MedCup.
by Sabina Mollart-Rogerson
“ I can confirm now what we all felt at the beginning of the season: that the level of the fleet, level of the sailors and the teams has continued to get higherr ever year, and it is getting more complicated to win a single race, not to even talk about winning a single regatta of the Audi MedCup Circuit,” Postigo says, affirming that the GP42 fleet has witnessed a sudden rise in professionalism and approach. “ Also, if we continue this line of thought, the evolution in the GP42 fleet, from the first event to the second event has been huge. They came to the first event, turned up and started racing and that was it. At the second event they were out practising, checking with the other boats, testing new sails. And so I think the GP42’s have made a big evolution simply in two events.”
“ All in all I am very pleased to see what we are seeing.”
And is he generally content that the number of entries realised in both fleets this season is what it should be?
“ The number of entries? We can never really be happy. Seriously, it would be great to have 18 to 20 boats sailing together like we had with the 52’s, and I think that the class itself deserves to be seeing those numbers. To be honest, though, we are just not in the best financial times of the last 15 years, but I am happy that event though the numbers are not so impressive as they have been, we can still get such a competitive fleet together and hopefully next season things will be different.”
Postigo considers the most impressive features of the season so far: “ The next step up in professionalism made by different teams has been impressive. The top four or five teams, some have built new boats and some have bought new boats to them, the way they are acting, the way they prepare the hulls, the simple thing that they move around now with two containers, is really impressive. It is still what amazes me most, just because every year you think you have seen the maximum, the top, and nothing can change to much from year to year, but again this year it has gone up. Can it be sustained? Well it is hard to say, that will all depend on the financial climate. I think all the teams appreciate if we propose to them other ways to cut back on budgets and control costs for the future.”
Have the cost savings controls introduced this season been effective? “ I think the measures we have already taken have been effective in some ways, but in other ways there are things that are absolutely impossible to control. You can set a low number of sails limit, but you will still have teams with big budgets who will build a large number of sails and then they will choose which ones they will stamp. That is very difficult to control. But event if this measure is not as effective as it should be, it is much better than it has been.”
Both Alicante Alicante’s historic Castillo Santa Barbara and Marseille’s Romano-Byzantine Notre Dame de La Garde basilica which built by the architect Esperandieu, and Marseille sit atop their own iconic mountains which overlook the race course areas, great vantage points for the casual spectator, but there have been widespread rumours of teams using these for purposes other than sightseeing, studying architecture, prayers, or strength and fitness work. An e-mail is being circulated to teams asking them to behave responsibly, backed up by changes to the notice of race. Cagliari was a venue where there were obvious overtures to have support RIBs dedicated to weather information:
“ It is still a problem. An e-mail has been circulated to the teams effectively asking them to please behave and a modification will be made on the sailing instructions for the next events, penalising the teams which are using a system. Of course it is very difficult to prove and to control. Now that such rules will be in effect and someone takes a picture or video of someone on the top of a mountain speaking on the phone, it could be very compromising. So I hope that teams will react positively and say ‘right, let’s not play this game, because anyone else can play this game and it just becomes an extra cost for everyone. I hope.”
And how is Cagliari shaping up?
“ We are really looking forward to Cagliari. Last year it was a fantastic venue. We are looking forward to the shore-side of the city, I love the place, but especially to the racing because we have had the best sea breeze there that we have ever had. You are in the south tip of a quite big island, and so it is picking up pretty much the heating of the whole island in a bay which is open to the south, and so it is very well heated through the day. The only slight drawback is that the more you go out of the bay the more ‘righties’ you have (right hand wind shift). Apart from that the wind conditions are fantastic. You can sail with 14-15, 16, 17 knots of sea breeze. Then if you don’t have sea breeze you can expect the Mistral and the 25-30 knots which we had last year. But, with flat water.”
The 2009 Audi MedCup Circuit evolution continues from July 20 in Cagliari with the third event of the season, the Region of Sardinia Trophy.
Audi MedCup
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