A perfect start at the pin end of the line for Team Sea Dubai in the first fleet regatta. Copyright Raffaello Bastiani/RC44 Class Association.
by Bernard Schopfer
Four races took place today in a light and fairly unstable breeze, allowing four different teams to score victories. Artemis and Team Aqua, the two teams who lead the overall Championship Tour, needed a couple of races to get back in a confident mode after their disappointing results in the match race event. They finally showed their usual leadership in the fleet regatta in the second part of the day.
The first regatta saw a splendid domination by the local Team Sea Dubai, with their local talent Yousef Lahej at the helm. Starting at full speed at the pin end of the line, Team Sea Dubai managed to cross ahead of the pack and to extend its lead throughout the race, winning with a fairly comfortable margin ahead of Islas Canarias Puerto Calero and No Way Back. Respectively fifth and ninth, Artemis and Team Aqua were probably wondering at this stage if there was some sort of spell on them.
Artemis, with Tim Snedden at the helm, started its come back in the second race, sailing a good regatta although unable to overtake the excellent Team Austria, with René Mangold at the helm, winners of their first ever regatta in the Championship Tour. Chris Bake’s Team Aqua was still struggling in the back of the fleet at this stage, but the cheers that could be heard from his family and local supporters started to play their effect.
Indeed, Bake dominated most of the third regatta. The latter proved to be the best of the day, with a very intense battle between No Way Back, Artemis, Katusha, Team Sea Dubai and Team Aqua. Artemis finally won the race ahead of Aqua and Sea Dubai, very fast throughout the day. As for No way Back, with Pieter Heerema at the helm, it finished a good fourth after two thirds, sailing consistently and well throughout the day despite the helmsman’s cracked ribs…
The last race of the day had to be shortened: the wind was dropping and the sun was about to dive in the Ocean. No Way Back controlled the situation well, crossing the arrival line a few seconds ahead of Team Aqua and Artemis.
No Way Back and Artemis lead the provisional ranking after the first four races. The event carries on until Sunday, with eight more fleet races including the double points DHL Trophy on Saturday.
They said:
Ray Davies, tactician, No Way Back: “We have tried to be consistent, and to avoid high risks. It has worked well; we went the right way most of the time and our speed was good, especially downwind. Pieter is doing a great job at the helm. Full credit to him because he is suffering because of his broken rib."
René Mangold, helmsman, Team Austria: “It feels very good to win a race. Everything is much easier when you are in the front, there are no turbulences, no waves, it’s clear ahead… We have done a lot of work last month, practicing on Sprintos on Lake Neusiedlersee and getting here four days ahead of the start of the event. We really try hard to have a program here, and to stick to it. Our goal is to replicate the same procedure in each situation. Sometimes it works well. We have definitely made huge progress."
Chris Bake, helmsman, Team Aqua: “It has been a very tough beginning in this event for us. And today we started badly too, with bad starts, a bad speed, bad positioning… Luckily it got better by the third race. We focused hard on the basics, and concentrated on the quality of our sailing. It finally started to pay off."
Daniel Calero, helmsman, Islas Canarias Puerto Calero: “We don’t get stable scores but we see that we can fight for the top places. We are really there and this makes me very happy. I think that we can ambition to finish the event in the top three and this is our goal.”
Fleet race, provisional results after four races:
(Ranking, name of team, helmsman, results, points)
1) Artemis, Tim Snedden, 5, 2, 1, 3 - 11 points
2) No Way Back, Pieter Heerema, 3, 3, 4, 1 – 11 points
3) Team Sea Dubai, Yousef Lahej, 1, 5, 3, 10 – 19 points
4) Team Aqua, Chris Bake, 9, 7, 2, 2 – 20 points
5) Puerto Calero Islas Canarias, Daniel Calero, 2, 10, 8, 4 - 24 points
6) Team Katusha, Bob Little, 4, 9, 5, 6 – 24 points
7) Organika, Maciej Nawrocki, 7, 4, 9, 5 - 25 points
8) Team Austria, Christian Binder, 6, 1, 10, 9 - 26 points
9) BMW ORACLE Racing, Neville Crichton, 10, 6, 6, 8 – 30 points
10) Ceeref, Igor Lah, 8, 8, 7, 7 – 30 points
RC44
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