RC44 Austria Cup

Gmunden-

It was a picture perfect day on Lake Traunsee today, one to remember I think as the forecast for the weekend is not so nice. Today was clear blue skies and a nice 8-12 knots breeze filled in on the south part of the lake at 1130 so racing got underway right on time.

Seven flights were held today and the big winner was Larry Ellison with Russell Coutts on tactics. They won 5 of their 6 races, with their only loss to Katusha. They even beat their sister team, RC 44 Challenge, with the America?s Cup winners James Spithill on the wheel and John Kostecki calling the shots.

Onboard Katusha, we had a decent day with three wins and two loses. We had a problem with the battens in our mainsail in the first two races and felt this was hurting our speed upwind. We changed them after the second race and then lost to Artemis in a close battle. Then we won the last two races against BMW Oracle and Cereef. We had a bye in the last race of the day so we have one more race to sail tomorrow than most of the teams.

There are four flights tomorrow and we will race, Team Aqua, RC 44 Challenge, No Way Back and Puerto Calero.

The forecast for tomorrow is similar to today. Tomorrow night a front is supposed to come through and the temperatures are to drop drastically. It snowed here last race in this event, so we are getting the warm clothes and ski hats ready.

For complete results go to www.rc44.com