Audi MedCup – Marseille

Marseille

Not the day we were imagining on Artemis. One positive of the day was that our speed seemed fine. We made a few adjustments and carded a more powerful jib so our speed appeared to be as good as any other boat on the track.

However, our 6, 8 finishes are not going to move us up to where we want to be by the end of the week. In the first race, we chose to start to the right side of the line, did not have a good start and got pushed out to the right even further. The race was all about the left. Still, we did a good job to get back into it and with our speed managed 6th.

Then for the second race, we wanted the left, including the left end of the line. There was a bit of a fight for that start but we got it. We were looking good 3/4’s of the way up the windward leg when Emirates Team New Zealand tacked on us and forced us back out to the left. That was not the moment to go out there and we went from the top 4 to second to last in one minute.

The wind was light (6-8 knots) and fickle (185-225) all day with disproportionately large seas like yesterday.

We made a bad move on the first run by gybing out to sea and lost the one boat we had been ahead of. Still, we hung tough and battled back to pass Matador and Cristabella on the last run.

There was plenty of weirdness out there, boats going from first to last and back to fourth.

Tomorrow is the “coastal race”. The forecast is for a bit more wind than today but not a hurricane. Then Saturday should have the beginning of a Mistral with 15-20 knots from the west-northwest. Sunday the forecast has 30-40 knots of Mistral. That would be too much to sail.

For complete results go to www.medcup.org and to watch the racing live visit www.artemisracing.com

Paul