Consistency pays for Katusha

Breeze up for the RC44s in Cascais

The forecasters had said the wind would ease, but instead torrential rain bought stronger winds which tested all 15 boats and teams competing at the Cascais RC44 Cup 2012. Sailing with their big masthead spinnakers in the first race of the day the wind increased to 28 knots, by the final run a number of the team’s suffered some spectacular broaches.

One team that relished the conditions was Peninsula Petroleum. They chose their favourite spot at the pin end of the start-line in each race and went on to win the first two races before posting a solid fifth in the third, moving John Bassadone, Vasco Vascotto and the Gibraltar-based team up to fifth overall. Owner and the man at the helm, Bassadone, was pleased with their day on the water: “It was pretty scary today, actually very very exciting! We had unbelievable results and all sailed really well managing to control the boat, the crew did amazingly.”

Katusha led the opening race of the day up to the final run before losing their spinnaker tack-line, which led to a dramatic spinnaker blow-out. With the halyard wrapped around the mainsail they couldn’t hoist their second kite and had to two-sail to the finish. “We were lucky to lose only three points on that run,” was guest helmsman Steve Howe’s synopsis after racing. The rest of the day proved less eventful, a solid second and third place followed leaving Katusha at the top of the overnight leaderboard, with a 14-point lead.

Team Aqua slotted in two sixth places and a fifth to move up into second place overall while Artemis Racing recovered from an average start to win the final race of the day. The team suffered two broaches right before the finish line of race one. The first was helped by a luff from Katusha, which saw the Swedes penalised for not keeping clear and incur a penalty turn. The second came on the last gybe and resulted in the spinnaker wrapping around the keel.

Morgan Larson, tactician on Artemis Racing explained the conditions on the race course. “It was really tough out there today obviously windy and rainy but good action and the boats were perfect. The wind was top end for the boats but good, it would have been fairly under control if you had been sailing around on your own but when you start racing, sailing higher upwind and faster downwind with boats around you it gets pretty wild, with waves coming over the bow and into the boats, they get heavier and then you start breaking sails which is what you saw out there today.”

Results: