Extreme Sailing Series - Realteam finishes racing season in style

by MaxComm Communication on 19 Nov 2013 Following four days and 26 races in glorious conditions in the Extreme Sailing Series Act 8, the Swiss crew on Realteam finished in style posting two firsts and two second places on the final day in Florianopolis. In keeping with the ongoing crew rotation policy, Realteam had a new helmsman on the Extreme 40 catamaran for the ultimate Act of the season – Arnaud Psarofaghis.

'It took us a bit of time to settle in to the new configuration,' explained Psarofaghis. 'And losing Cédric Schmidt mid-regatta to an injured finger when he went overboard didn’t help! But on the other hand, the team adapted very well to my style of helming and we were really happy with the results on the final day – everything went our way!'

The 2013 season was Realteam’s first on an Extreme 40, so a fifth place in the Extreme Sailing Series Championship is a very respectable result. 'The whole team should be proud of what we have achieved in our first season,' said skipper Jérôme Clerc. 'Particularly as we finished just behind the four most experienced teams on the circuit.

'This year was a transition period for us and we have been able to test all sorts of different crew configurations and we know which areas we need to work on this winter. We will start training again at the beginning of December with ambitious goals for next year!'

Realteam set out this year to establish a squad of high performing sailing professionals and has achieved this objective with some good results and good learning along the way. This project was made possible thanks to a number of partners, who Jérôme Clerc was quick to credit for the team’s success: 'I would like to thank our main partners: Esteban Garcia, of Realstone and Philippe Rey-Gorrez of TeamWork. Both are helping Realteam’s young Swiss sailors to race at the highest level of international sailing.'

The team behind Realteam :

Bruno Barbarin, tactician
Jérôme Clerc, skipper
Etienne David, coach
Denis Girardet, tactician
Jeff Kerleguer, boat captain
Bryan Mettraux, bowman
Nils Palmieri, mainsail trimmer
Arnaud Psarofaghis, helmsman for Florianopolis
Cédric Schmidt, trimmer
Sébastien Stephant, boat captain
Thierry Wasem, bowman

Extreme Sailing Series 2013 overall ranking

1. The Wave, Muscat (OMA) 74 points.
2. Alinghi (SUI) 74 points.
3. Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) 61 points.
4. SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) 51 points.
5. Realteam (SUI) 49 points.
6. GAC Pindar (NZL) 42 points.
7. Team X Invitational 34 points.
8. Team Korea (KOR) 16 points.

Extreme Sailing Series 2013 Act 8 Florianopolis results

1. Alinghi (SUI) Morgan Larson, Stuart Pollard, Pierre-Yves Jorand, Nils Frei, Yves Detrey 210 points.
2. The Wave, Muscat (OMA) Leigh McMillan, Ed Smyth, Pete Greenhalgh, Musab Al Hadi, Hashim Al Rashdi 215 points.
3. Red Bull Sailing Team (AUT) Roman Hagara, Hans-Peter Steinacher, Matthew Adams, Simon Cooke, Kinley Fowler 208 points.
4. ChinaSpirit (CHN) Phil Robertson, Garth Ellingham, Brad Hooker, Louis Viat, Nick Catley 184 points.
5. Realteam (SUI) Arnaud Psarofaghis, Bruno Barbarin, Thierry Wassem, Nils Palmieri, Jérôme Clerc 164 points.
6. GAC Pindar (NZL) Will Tiller, Matt Steven, Stewart Dodson, Tom Bentham, Shaun Mason 159 points.
7. SAP Extreme Sailing Team (DEN) Jes Gram-Hansen, Rasmus Køstner, Pete Cumming, Mikkel Røssberg, Nicolai Sehested 122 points.
8. Team Brazil Mapfre (BRA) Clínio de Freitas, André Mirsky, Daniel Santiago, André Chang, Bruno di Bernardi 61 points.