RC44: Paul Cayard reports from Katusha in Dubai

by Paul Cayard

This is going to sounds like a broken record....we sailed badly again today.

The short story is that we ended up 6th overall.

The sob story is that while having a great first race today, sailing down the final run in third place, the wind shifted 120 degrees...that's right...120 degrees. The whole fleet had to put jibs up on the run and we even had to tack. We finished last.
Second race, going well, third after the first lap, big shift, a mistake by us in droping the spinnaker, and were 7th.

Anyway, I'm thinking we got it out of our system. All the bad stuff in the same week.

With 40 years of racing under my belt, I can say that "it happens". I can also say that we will go on and win many more races.

Artemis, who finished up second in the fleet racing and combined with their third place in the match racing, ended up winning the overall. That is great for Torbjorn Tornqvist and Terry Hutchinson.

And it is good for the whole Artemis team as we head down to Auckland next week for the Louis Vuitton Trophy. I will start writing updates from New Zealand around March 5.

That's is from Dubai. Thank you to the DIMC, Sid Bensalah and Saeed Herab and the whole staff here. We will be back in November for the Louis Vuitton Trophy.

Cayard Sailing