Artemis crossing tacks with Emirates Team New Zealand off Cascais. Image copyright Sander van der Borch/Artemis.
by Paul Cayard
Not a fun day for Artemis but we managed to hold onto third place.
We had a decent race in the first one with a 6th but lost both Quantum and All4One on the final run to the finish. All4One was just 0.5 ahead of us in second place going into today. The Portugese on Bigimist won the first race with Team New Zealand in 2nd.
At the start of the second race we were too close to windward of TeamOrigin, in big waves and 20 knots of wind. We got slow and the bow blew off and our sprit hit TeamOrigin and broke. So we had to make a penalty turn and we had no sprit for the downwind legs.
We were well into last when the dust settled after the start and I thought about just retiring to save the wear and tear on the sails. But that would have cost us one point as the difference between a last and a DNF (Did Not Finish). Then Bribon had a problem with their gennaker too and went down the last run without a kite. We were able to set ours, tacked to the bow, and we managed to pass them and gain another point.
Quantum sailed well to win easily and Team New Zealand got another second showing a lot of consistency.
Team New Zealand won easily and All4One sailed well to get second. Behind Artemis in third, things were tight with TeamOrigin and Quantum tied for fourth just 1.5 points behind us.
Cascais proved to be a fantastic place to race and a beautiful city to boot. I am sure we will be back to race here next year.
Artemis Racing
Audi MedCup
