Another good day today for Katusha and Artemis Racing. Katusha continues to lead the fleet here in San Diego with scores of 2, 6, 2 and 35 points. Artemis Racing had a 1, 4, 6 for a total of 46 for the series and 4th place. TeamAqua had the same points as we did for the day and remain 2 back at 37 and Oracle had 11 and remains in third with 42 points.

The big moment of the day for Katusha occurred in the second race when we rounded the last wind ward mark 10th and managed to gybe through the fleet to finish 6th. We have come back like that more than once this week and shaving points like that makes a big difference on the score card.

The racing is just fast and furious on the tight race track inside the Bay here. Lead changes and gains and losses of five places in three minutes are common in the fleet.

So, with three races left for tomorrow, it is still wide open. What we do take into tomorrow is a boat that is going better than ever and a crew who is sailing together well. So both Artemis Racing and Katusha will put that on the race track and we will see where the ships fall at the end of the day.

For complete results go to www.rc44.com

Paul

Another excellent day for Artemis Racing and Katusha. Both teams sailed well at the front of the fleet today, battling with the winner of the day, ORACLE Racing who has 10 points. Katusha had scores of 4,3,4,3 to end the day in second place on 14 points and Artemis Racing is in third place with 16 points, having won 2 of the races.

Once again, the conditions inside San Diego Bay were beautiful for the 11 boat fleet. The action is very tight and boats can overtake or lose six boats very quickly. It is truly “never over ’til it’s over” type of sailing.

Racing continues tomorrow with four more fleet races scheduled.

For complete results go to www.rc44.com

Paul

We just finished up two days of practice down here in San Diego. Beautiful, sunny but chilly both days with 10-17 knots of Northwesterly wind. The race course for this event is inside the Bay where it should be. The boats are berthed at the Broadway Street Pier. Looks like about 12 teams are here.

We had fleet racing practice yesterday which meant Bob (Peaches) Little was on the helm and I was tactician onboard Katusha. We competed in about three races with 10 other teams around a short 1.25 mile course. Today we had match race training with our friends on Artemis Racing in which Bob and I inverted our roles from yesterday. Tomorrow in the first day of racing and will be Match Racing and we are first up against the other Russian team Synergy in the first flight. The format of the regatta’s is different this year with the match racing becoming just one day of the event and having only an annual score. So at each event competitors will work their way through a portion of a round robin and by the end of the season we will have completed about three round robins in total. The podium for match racing will be determined only at years end.

The remaining four days of each event will be fleet racing which features the owners as the drivers of the boats. Unfortunately neither Torbjorn Tornqvist (Artemis) nor Guenaddi Timtchencko (Katusha) could attend the event in San Diego this week. Sarah Gundersen is helming Artemis with Morgan Larson calling the shots.

It is fun for me to be in San Diego. I lived here for 12 years. My son was born here and both kids started school here. I have lots of friends here some of whom I am hoping to get to see this week. I raced in the finals of the two America’s Cups held in San Diego in the early 90’s. I went for a run along the bay front this morning down to where the Stars and Stripes base was in 1995 when I sailed with Dennis Conner and his team. The base is now a harbor for large boats and the Rowing Club restaurant is no longer a Chart House but a Crab Shack.

Things change. That’s life.

Paul

Three races were held today off Miami’s South Beach. The winds were 14-22 knots from the West which made it very shifty and tricky as this meant the wind was coming off the shore.

It was a mixed bag in the results with Katusha and Artemis each winning one of the three races.

Katusha ended up 7th in the fleet racing, one place behind Cereef. This means we tie for this event but they win the tie breaker, but that we are ahead of them in the overall standings in 7th place for the 2010 Championship Tour.

Artemis ended up 5th in the fleet racing and a very credible 2nd overall in this Miami event and a very good 3rd overall to BMW ORACLE Racing and “17” for the season.

So that is the end of the 2010 sailing season. Very busy….maybe too much at times.

Artemis is continuing with our Extreme 40 training for a few more days down here in Miami.

Next season will see Artemis and Katusha continuing with the RC44 circuit beginning in San Diego in early March. We will also be racing on the Extreme 40 circuit which begins mid March in Oman.

For complete results go to www.rc44.com

Merry Christmas to all.

Paul

No wind, no race.

Sudden death in Match Racing racing tomorrow.

Standby.

Paul