Extreme Sailing Series - Positive experience for Team Tilt in Act 5

by MaxComm Communication on 30 Jul 2013 The Swiss youth sailors onboard Team Tilt have their collective eye firmly on the upcoming Red Bull Youth America’s Cup which kicks off in San Francisco on 1 September and racing Act 5 of the Extreme Sailing Series in Porto was part of their ongoing training programme.

The young team won a race and posted three podium finishes to finish eighth overall on Sunday on equal points with fellow Red Bull Youth America’s Cup team ROFF Cascais and within reach of the New Zealand youth team that has been racing the Extreme circuit since the beginning of the year.

'Several races were held on the river which is tidal and gusty,' said Lucien Cujean, Team Tilt skipper. 'It took us a while to get used to these conditions, but by the end of the event we had got the hang of it and we all came away feeling that we had learned a lot and are stronger from the experience. The standard is very high on the Extreme circuit and it was particularly interesting to see how the other teams set up and operate.'

Over the four-day event the fleet raced 30 races with The Wave, Muscat, skippered by Leigh McMillan coming out on top, closely followed by Alinghi with Morgan Larson on the helm and Realteam skippered and helmed by Pierre Pennec completing the podium in third place.

Lucien Cujean and his Team Tilt crewmates progressed throughout the event, getting the hang of the challenging conditions, and scoring their best results in the 'Open' races which were conducted on the sea as opposed to the river where the 'Stadium' racing was held.

'We had a lot of close contact situations and improved our starts throughout the event,' said Lucien Cujean. 'The whole team did really well and our performance improved significantly every time we raced even if the overall result doesn’t necessarily reflect that. We will take away good memories of this event where we learned a lot and bonded even tighter as a team.'

Team Tilt will take a few days off before they fly to San Francisco at the beginning of August for their next international event: the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup!