RC44 Cascais Cup tests boats and teams + Video
by Jessica Gray on 31 Mar 2012
Strong winds in Cascais - RC44 Cascais Cup 2012 MartinezStudio.es
RC44 Cascais Cup, the second round of the RC44 Championship Tour, is currently underway. The forecasters had said the wind would ease today, but instead torrential rain bought stronger winds which tested all 15 boats and teams.
Sailing with their big masthead spinnakers in the first race of the day the wind increased to 28 knots, by the final run a number of the team’s fell foul to some spectacular broaches.
One team that relished the conditions was Peninsula Petroleum (GBR). They chose their favourite spot at the leeward end of the start-line in each race and went on to win the first two races before posting a solid fifth in the third, moving John Bassadone, Vasco Vascotto (ITA) and the Gibraltar based team up to fifth overall. Owner and the man at the helm, John Bassadone, was pretty pleased with their day on the water. 'It was pretty scary today, actually very very exciting! We had unbelievable results and all sailed really well managing to control the boat, the crew did amazingly.'
Katusha (RUS) led the opening race of the day upto the final run before losing their spinnaker tack-line, which led to a dramatic spinnaker blow-out. With the halyard wrapped around the mainsail they couldn’t hoist their second kite and had to two-sail to the finish. 'We were lucky to lose only three points on that run,' was guest helmsman Steve Howe’s synopsis after racing. The rest of the day proved less eventful, a solid second and third place followed leaving Katusha at the top of the overnight leaderboard, with a 14-point lead.
Team Aqua slotted in two sixth and a fifth to move up into second place overall whilst Artemis Racing (SWE) recovered from an average start to win the final race of the day. The team suffered two broaches right before the finish line of race one. The first was helped by a luff from Katusha, which saw the Swedes penalised for not keeping clear and incur a penalty turn. The second came on the last gybe and resulted in the spinnaker wrapping around the keel.
Morgan Larson (USA) tactician on Artemis Racing explained the conditions on the race course. 'It was really tough out there today obviously windy and rainy but good action and the boats were perfect. The wind was top end for the boats but good, it would have been fairly under control if you had been sailing around on your own but when you start racing, sailing higher upwind and faster downwind with boats around you it gets pretty wild, with waves coming over the bow and into the boats, they get heavier and then you start breaking sails which is what you saw out there today.'
Racing at the Cascais RC44 Cup 2012 concludes on 1st April. The action kicks off at 12.00 noon daily.
RC44 Cascais Cup Results (After four races)
1 Katusha 3 7 1 4 4 3 2 – 24
2 Team Aqua 8 1 3 9 6 5 6 – 38
3 RC44 Team CEEREF 5 2 6 1 11 8 7 – 40
4 Synergy Russian Sailing Team 1 10 7 5 5 6 10 – 44
5 Peninsula Petroleum Sailing Team 4 13 11 14 1 1 5 – 49
6 Ironbound 14 15 2 7 7 2 3 – 50
7 Artemis Racing 7 3 8 13 12 7 1 – 51
8 No Way Back 6 4 4 11 3 13 13 – 54
9 RUS-7 Sail Racing Team powered by AnyWayAnyDay.com 9 11 13 2 2 11 9 – 57
10 Team Cascais 2 5 12 3 13 10 11 (2)- 58
11 AEZ Sailing Team 12 14 5 12 10 4 4 – 61
12 Puerto Calero 10 9 9 6 8 9 12 – 63
13 Aegir 11 6 14 8 16(DNS) 16 (DNS) 8 – 79
14 Team Nika 13 8 10 10 16 (DNS) 16(DNS) 16(DNS)- 89
15 AFX Capital Racing Team 15 12 15 15 9 12 16(DNF)(4) – 97
2012 RC44 Championship Tour Calendar:
8 – 12 February RC44 Puerto Calero Cup, Puerto Calero, Lanzarote
28 March – 1 April RC44 Cascais Cup, Cascais, Portugal
30 May – 3 June RC44 Austria Cup, Lake Traunsee, Austria
18 – 22 July RC44 Sweden Cup, Marstrand, Sweden
3 – 7 October Adris RC44 Word Championships, Rovinj, Croatia
RC44 Championship Tour website
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