Team Aqua Bags Adris Cup Victory—Sailing News from the U.S. and Beyond
by David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor on 3 Oct 2011
For fans of the RC44 class, this has been a great season of racing. The class’ second-to-last event, the Adris RC44 Cup, wrapped up yesterday, with Chris Bake’s Team Aqua claiming the top step of the podium. Bake, with Cameron Appleton calling tactics, sailed a consistently strong regatta, beating second-place Artemis by 12 points and third-placed CEEREF by 19 points. 'Incredible! Winning is a vindication of the commitment and hard work of everyone on the team,' said Bake. 'It’s really nice to put yourself against this level of competition and be recognized as such, so I’m pretty happy with it. We will defiantly be back next year to try and defend our title.' The class’ final 2011 event, which also doubles as the RC44 worlds, will be held in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote in mid November. Get the full story in this issue, and stay tuned for more about the RC44 Worlds, as it becomes known.
Stateside, Keith Swinton (AUS) and his crew of Olaf Lundgren, Jakob Gustafson, and Rick McGarvie have won the Chicago Match Race Center’s ISAF Grade 1 Invitational Cup, which was contested in blustery conditions just in front of the Windy City’s fabled Navy Pier. Lundgren and crew secured both dockside bragging rights, as well as $15,600 of the event’s $65,000 total purse. 'This was a fantastic event, we really enjoyed it,' said Swinton. 'The competitors were tough, the organizers did a great job even with these difficult conditions, and we really enjoyed coming back to Chicago to race in this event.'
Meanwhile, at the Extreme Sailing Series Act 7, which just wrapped up in Nice, France, Groupe Edmond de Rothschild, skippered by Pierre Pennec, pulled off an impressive juggernaut move in the final race to snatch victory from Artemis. 'This is crucial moving into the end of the season because to win out of luck is good, but to win feeling that the level of our team has gone up a notch is even better,' said Pennec. 'I think that the crew manages to reach a high level especially in the crucial races. I try to sail as best as I can in each Act and not to make mistakes and above all to think about each race, and not the overall result. I never said to myself that we were going to win here in Nice.' Get the full multi-media report, and be sure to check out Max Ranchi’s great image gallery, inside.
Also in this issue, get the latest Beta on the Global Ocean Race, the Santa Maria Cup Women’s Match-Racing Championship and the ongoing Melges 24 U.S. Nationals. And for anyone suffering from a case of the Monday-morning blues, be sure to check out Sail-World.com’s exclusive preview of the 2011-2012 Volvo Ocean Race, complete with plenty of great VO70 sailing images, as well as a light-hearted multi-media look at the dockside scene in Alicante, where this grueling ocean (and in-port) race will begin in late October. Enjoy.
May the four winds blow you safely home,
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