Spain. Breitling MedCup: Supermodel Eva Herzigova wishes Coutts, Brady & T52 Lexus crew good luck
Thursday, 20 July 2006
Event media:
Lucky mascots come in all shapes and forms, but Lexus revealed what must be the ultimate in shapely lucky charms this morning in Puerto Portals in the form of supermodel Eva Herzigova.
The Czech model paid a flying visit to the 21 boat TP 52 line up to say ‘hello boys’ and wish Russell Coutts, Gavin Brady and the rest of the crew of the Lexus TP52 owned by George Andreadis and Jaime Yllera the best of luck for the imminent Breitling MedCup TP52 regatta.
Eva took time out en route to Ibiza to hopefully add a winning magic to the Lexus.
“I understand Lexus has won the last three regattas here so I am hoping that I will with the combined talents of Paul Cayard and Russell Coutts forming the afterguard prove their lucky charm this time.” Eva smiled.
The 2006 Botin & Carkeek design was putting together some consistently good results towards the end of the last regatta in Castellon.
For this first Mallorcan regatta it will be Coutts as tactician and Gavin Brady steering. Alinghi strategist and multiple 470 world champion, Mallorcan Jordi Calafat joins Lexus on mainsheet Pirates of the Caribbean trimmer Ian Budgen rejoins the team after Volvo Ocean Race duties and is scheduled to sail the rest of the Breitling MedCup.
Lexus sailed yesterday and have done some more serious tuning work to the rig and Andreadis is hopeful that they will continue to improve here:
“We have been trying to get the equipment right and it has been going a little more slowly than we would have hoped, which is a bit of a disappointment. It is always hard to get the sails and rig to work best together but we hope we will be better here. We have made a few small changes, nothing major.” Explained Andreadis, “I am not sure but I think the differences between Warpath and us are mainly tuning differences.”
“It has been fantastic racing this season. The boats are very close as always, and it is good that last year’s boats are competitive too.”
As one of the prime movers in the circuit’s visit to Athens in September, George believes that the racing on the Saronic Gulf will be good:
“We have a very large part of the team who ran the Olympic regatta involved as the race committee and the Hellenic Offshore Racing Association have done a good job in preparing for the event.”
