Audi Med Cup – Alicante – Race Day 2

A big day of racing today with Races 3, 4 and 5 held in 10, 12 and 14 knots of wind, respectively. Course number one (windward, leeward, windward, finish) was used for all three races. Mean Machine had the best day with a fifth and two firsts, while Bribon is in first place with just 15 points.

Onboard Desafio Español we had an up and down day but we are definitely winning the prize for the most boats passed. We shot ourselves in the foot at the start of Race 3 by going over the line early without any real pressure from the boats around us. So, after restarting we passed nine boats and finished 7th. In the second race of the day, we had a good start but went left and that was not the place to be. We stumbled hard at the leeward gate, getting really slow there and just did not sail very well, so we finished 11th. Just prior to the start of Race 5, we had a string on the tiller break that caused me to lose control of the boat and we went beyond head to wind and fouled Tau. So right after crossing the line, we had to do a 360 degree penalty. Needless to say, we were well in last place. But the boat was fast up and downwind in the 14 knots and we managed to pass 11 boats to finish 5th!

So, the summary for us after the first two days is – the boat is fast and we have just got to stop getting in its way. I am very happy the way we have tuned this boat up, working very diligently on the rig tune, which is the critical element to getting these boats to sail fast through the wind range. Our North Sails by Sandro Benini are good too.

Tomorrow is the coastal race. There will be a scoring gate half way through the race which should be about 30 miles in total. Hopefully, we will have the 12-14 knots of wind that we finished up with today.

For complete results go to www.2008.medcup.org