RC44s: Sea Dubai RC 44 Gold Cup

The RC 44 Championship Tour conclusion will take place next week in Dubai, with ten teams representing nine nations competing for the Sea Dubai RC 44 Gold Cup and the season trophies. The regatta starts on Wednesday November 25. The points will count for double


RC44s racing earlier this year. Image copyright Ales Fevzez/RC 44 Class Association.

by Bernard Schopfer

Organised by Dubai International Marine Club (DIMC), the Sea Dubai RC 44 Gold Cup will be theatre of a fierce battle between Team Aqua (Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton) and Team Artemis (Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Barker). The two leaders of the Championship Tour will battle it out for all the titles at stake, with several other teams also in a position to grab the lead in some of the rankings. The Gold Cup is the class’ most important regatta this season and the points will count double.

Artemis leads the match race, fleet race and DHL Trophy yearly rankings whilst Team Aqua sits three points ahead of the Swedish team in the overall standing.

Team Aqua, Ceeref and No way Back can still grab the match race title from Artemis whilst some other teams – too far distanced to challenge them in the overall ranking – will be serious threats for the actual Gold Cup, including Katusha (Paul Cayard) and Organika (Karol Jablonski), who proved during the last regatta in Portoroz that they can beat any team in a match race.

The fleet race ranking isn’t as open, with Artemis leading Team Aqua by two points and BMW ORACLE Racing and No Way Back by three more points. Artemis showed such domination last month in Portoroz that they are the favourite of this contest.

The most coveted title is the overall Championship Tour ranking. Team Aqua leads this contest, three points ahead of Artemis and seven ahead of No Way Back.

The event will start on Tuesday November 24 with the practice race and media day. The match race event will take place on November 25 & 26 whilst the fleet regatta will take place from November 27 – 29.

Ten teams representing nine nations will participate in the Sea Dubai RC 44 Gold Cup:
Team Aqua, Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton (UAE),
Team Ceeref, Igor Lah / Rod Davis (SLO),
Sea Dubai, Yousef Lahej, DIMC / Markus Wieser (UAE),
BMW ORACLE Racing, Neville Crichton / Russell Coutts (USA),
Team Organika, Maciej Nawrocki / Karol Jablonski (POL),
Puerto Calero Islas Canarias, Daniel Calero / Jose Maria Ponce (SPA),
Artemis, Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Barker (SWE),
No Way Back, Pieter Heerema / Ray Davies (NED),
Team Austria, René Mangold / Christian Binder AUS),
Team Katusha, Bob Little / Paul Cayard (RUS).

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