Unfurled, a family affair, win Superyacht Cup Palma

by The Superyacht Cu on 22 Jun 2014 Superyacht Cup Palma 2014 - Unfurled with a two, one, one scoreline in Class 2 win the Superyacht Cup Palma after a fabulous finale on the Bay of Palma for the 26 boat fleet. With the breeze topping out over 20kts on the first fast broad reach the conditions produced fantastic racing.

With four families on board – including renowned father and son partnership Ross and Cambell Field – the 112ft/34.2m Frers design took the top award with a consistently strong set of results across the three different races. Field Jr, described the winning family affair:

'There are four families on board, Ross and myself Campbell Field. Ross is the safety officer on board because he has had every accident under the sun and so he knows what to expect. He can see things happening. But he offers some input, and some criticism and keeps reminding all the Poms that we won the rugby this morning. Gary Wiseman and his wife Sue and their son Sam are on board. John Barrett the project manager had his son Connor on board for the week and the owner’s daughter and so that is four families on board. That seems like a pretty good formula. We have Steve Branagh and Fraser Brown trimming and Adam Bateman trimming and Nik Pearson on the bow. It is a good solid bunch of guys.'

'It was a really nice race today. It was an interesting course, a little favoured on starboard out of the Bay. We had to get over to the east once and then all the way back across to the west we had a couple of transitions a bit of a hole at Islettas again. We popped offshore to get a bit more air and we almost had a bit of a get out of jail free card with that one. It was a bit of procession after that but a nice long run home. Gary Wiseman did us a nice job of getting the angles right, so when we saw the breeze was a little lighter in the Bay then overstanding a bit and then we came charging in and it was great.

'It is a brilliant regatta. To have that breeze dial up at 1300hrs, they have set some lovely courses with a good mix of windward leewards and some reaching as well.'

'It is fantastic for the owner and fantastic for the team. This has been a successful team over 15 years. It is really satisfying but we sail the boat really, really well. I am thrilled of the owner.'

In Class 1 Saudade won the final race but could not beat Ganesha’s overall score, the new Dubois 149ft/46m sloop winning their class at their fourth ever regatta. Navigator Nacho Postigo commented:

'It was another interesting course today, not least on the second leg when the breeze came in with a bit more than we all expected, we were on a broad reach with big gear up when the wind peaked for us at 24kts and we kind of thought ‘Oh My God!’ but we hung on, it was a bit of a wild ride. But we were fine'

'I think the last downwind leg kind of defined the results. The wind dropped approaching the finish and that was good for the boats that had finished or were finishing. And so there were some big gains and that was a bit unexpected to get that cloud cover and that just killed off the sea breeze.

'For us today second to Saudade was OK they are a good team and for the overall Unfurled are well deserved winners, they sailed better, they sailed clean and sailed well, they were better all round.'

But for us winning the class is good, it is only our fourth regatta with the boat and we are still learning, in fact it is a bit of a surprise to get second, but we sailed well.'

And in Class 3 Heartbeat needed to win today in order to win their class overall and retain the Class title they won here last year, at the only regatta the crew do each year together:

The owner said:

'It was great to win again but it was more difficult this time with more competition. We have a secret weapon, my holiday spinnaker, we had it up today and that makes a difference. We had our best race today. We had to win today. '