2011 Audi MedCup

[MLovett]

19 Apr 2010

One Month until Cascais and start of the 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit


With one month left until the first start guns fire to open an exciting 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit, the Circuit organizers and the race teams are finalizing preparations to unfold the seventh successive year of Circuit racing, one which will see regattas returning successively to Cascais, Marseille, Cagliari, Cartagena and with the season’s finale in Barcelona.


As did the Portuguese jewel last season, Cascais by Lisbon starts the season with the Trophy of Portugal running from May 16th - 22nd. The Circuit then returns to Marseille for the fourth year in a row (June 14-19th), to the historic capital city of Sardinia Cagliari (July 19th to 24th) to Murcia where the ever-popular Cartagena hosts the Region of Murcia Trophy (August 23rd to 28th) while the Catalan capital of Barcelona, which proved such an all-encompassing venue when the Audi MedCup Circuit visited for the first time in 2010, will host the finale between September 12th and 17th.

The winning formula has changed little for this season. Each city hosts an individual stand-alone Trophy regatta, but it is the aggregate points over the entire season, for the 52 Series and the S40 Series which will determine the overall champions.

“Returning to venues that are known to us is an advantage for everyone in terms of continuity. And the cities keep building and improving on their past years’ formula. And for the organisaton and the race crews that streamlines and improves the logistics. We have also accumulated good data on weather reliability, which makes providing high quality race management and equable racing more straightforward”, says Ignacio Triay, Director of the Audi MedCup Circuit.


Dates and Venues

Cascais, Trophy of Portugal, May 16th to 22nd

Marseille, June 14 to19th

Sardinia, July 19th to 24th

Cartagena, August 23rd to 28th

Barcelona, September 12th and 17th


Although the itinerary of venues has a familiar look, the TP52 fleet has been invigorated with a host of new boats and new faces.
 Among those with new boats Quantum Racing (USA) and Synergy (RUS) will campaign very similar brand new Botín Partners designs which have been built by Longitud Zero. Of course Marcelino Botín and his team have won overall honours with their winning designs in 2008, 2009 and 2010, but Rolf Vrolijk has new TP52’s for Audi Sailing Team powered by All4ONE (FRA/GER), Audi Azzurra (ITA), RÀN (SWE/GBR) and Container (GER), to two noticeably different designs. Vrolijk also designed Bribón (ESP), which was formerly Matador (ARG) and Gladiator (GBR) which was previously Artemis (SWE).

The transition to the 2011 TP52 box rule is completed with a new standardized 4800 kgs keel format which comprises a 1000kgs solid steel fin to support the 3800kgs bulb, which has made measurement of the fin and bulb more accurate and easier. Also the new 2011 rigs are no longer allowed high modulus carbon in the rig manufacture and since 2010 boats are built to the ISO Germanischer Lloyds classification, making for slightly heavier, more robust hull and deck.

Star recruits

Among the new faces for 2011, Quantum Racing stands out with the arrival of America’s Cup winner Ed Baird (USA) as skipper-helm, stepping into the shoes of Terry Hutchinson. The strong North-American campaign have been training hard to adapt to several crew changes but the core afterguard of Adrian Stead (GBR) and Kevin Hall (USA) remain as tactician and navigator. The core of the Italian Audi Azzurra presumably won’t need the same period to gel. They are predominantly Alberto Roemmers Argentinian Matador regulars who finished third in the 2010 Circuit, including skipper Guillermo Parada and the all Italian afterguard of strategist Vasco Vascotto, tactician Francesco Bruni and navigator Bruno Zirilli.

In its second season in the Circuit but their first with brand new boat Audi ALL4ONE is skippered Jochen Schuemann, four times Olympic medalist, who has said that “The team´s main goal will be to finish in the top three in the overall standings and to win at least one of the trophies“. Frenchman Sebastian Col will be helm again for the French-German team.

Synergy´s young helmsman Evgeny Neugodnikov is objective given his Russian team´s limited amount of training time with their new first brand new boat since their programme started out: 
“Especially in Cascais at the beginning of the Circuit, we will have our new boat, it´s our first regatta with it and we will take time to get used to it”, Neugodnikov has declared.

Skype co-founder Nikklas Zennstrom´s joins the TP52 Series for the first time on the heels of string of major offshore blue riband successes.
Rán, is one of the teams that has the pedigree and experience to succeed from the get-go. Under the guidance of Tim Powell (GBR) who has many years of experience in the MedCup Circuit, Gavin Brady (NZL) as tactician and Steve Hayles (GBR) as navigator.

Rán´s sister-ship, Udo Schütz´s Container, will also debut in Cascais with Markus Wieser at the helm and Hamish Pepper (formerly Artemis strategist/tactician) as tactician.

Wieser commented recently: “The project is a great opportunity to lead the team into a new dimension, a competition with a very skilled group”.

Lastly, Tony Langley´s new TP52 programme, Gladiator, steps up to the Audi MedCup Circuit in this season after an enjoyable experience with Weapon of Choice at the TP52 Class World Championships. With the 2009 Vrolijk design (former Artemis), the British team is one of five to prepare for the Circuit´s imminent start at Palma Vela regatta in Mallorca this coming weekend.

The first Soto 40s have been training too in the Mediterranean waters

2011 will be the debut year of the Soto 40 Series in the Audi MedCup Circuit. Iberdrola Team (ESP) and Ngoni (GBR), the first European boats have been training in the waters of Valencia over recent weeks. Noticia IV (ESP), Patagonia (ARG) and XXII (ESP) are expected to land in Spain presently.

They were built in Argentinaby M Boats, where the first Soto 40 was launched in only two years ago and 20 have already been built. The Soto 40, is the Circuit’s new strict one-design boat with of 40 feet long and displaces 4200kgs.

[MLovett]

10 May 2010

A Week is Not Long as the Audi MedCup Circuit Clock Counts Down to the Cascais Trophy.

The demands of a five month season which offers no discards at all and aggregates points from each and every race means that hitting the start line of the first race of the 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit with boat and crew at the highest level of competitiveness is absolutely paramount. At such a level the age old maxim that ‘you can’t win the top Trophy at the first event of the season but you can certainly lose it’ has never been truer.






And with an incredible complement of six brand new TP52’s which have been on the water in Europe for only a few weeks, and four new, ‘fresh from the wrapper’ Soto 40’s, there is a considerable early advantage to be gained by ensuring the new boat and the crew are in the best possible shape.

The first 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit regatta starts in just one week, when the world’s leading regatta circuit returns to Cascais, Lisbon, Portugal. Some of the leading contenders in both classes have already managed to put in more than a dozen training days and some have already raced, but from the middle of this week, the crews are expected to be on the Atlantic waters off the renowned strong winds venue, polishing their crew work and fine tuning their new boats.

Racing for the Cascais Trophy starts with the official practice race for the 52 Series on Tuesday 17th May after a warning signal at 1300hrs. The first official line up of the Soto 40 Class is therefore on Wednesday 18th May when the 40 Series takes on their official training race. Points racing for the 52 Series starts Wednesday with three races scheduled for that day, then windward leeward races on Thursday, Friday and Sunday and the Coastal Race on Saturday. Soto40’s race windward-leeward races only on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday 16th at midday two teams officially christen their new TP52’s, Italy’s Audi Azzurra Sailing Team and the Franco-German crew of Audi Sailing Team powered by All4One. During the afternoon there will be an open workshop session with designer Rolf Vrolijk and two of Audi’s leading car designers.

It is nearly impossible to set out who the form teams should be in Cascais. The Franco-German team Audi All4 One finished second on their debut at a breezy Cascais last year, even with a 2008 build boat. Jochen Schuemann and Sebastien Col return to Cascais with a solid season under their belts, but with a brand new boat which, inevitably, they will still be getting to grips with. Audi MedCup Circuit 2008 and current World Champions Quantum Racing have a brand new Botin Partners boat which they have been tuning up with a crew which has several key changes since last seasons, not least the arrival of America’s Cup winner Ed Baird as skipper-helm.

“To be frank we are not quite where we would really want to be, but such is the way life always seems to be with a brand new boat and several crew changes.” Confesses Quantum Racing’s project manager Ed Reynolds, “We are perhaps 75% of the way to where we want to be in, say, a couple of events time and for sure the few days of training off Cascais before racing starts will be very valuable to the team.”

“There are certain differences in the styles and approaches of Ed (Baird) to that of Terry Hutchinson and they will take some time to get used to for the crew. But for sure we are very happy with our new boat, we would absolutely not trade it with anyone else’s in the fleet. And at this stage our objective must be to leave Cascais still being in a position to win the Circuit at the end of the season. After all that is the goal!”


But perhaps what appears to be the most seamless transition to a new boat so far may have been that of Audi Azzurra Sailing Team’s with their new Vrolijk design which they won Palma Vela Regatta with. Strategist of the Audi Azzurra Sailing Team Vasco Vascotto (ITA), twice a member of an overall Circuit winning crew comments on their Palma win: "The races in Palma unfortunately don’t, of course, count for the Audi Med Cup standings, but adds to our huge enthusiasm and bolsters our knowledge that things were done properly. The crew has shown we are well prepared, and we will try to start out in Cascais on the best footing, but we know that the opponents are going to be really close!”. And the team’s tactician Francesco Bruni (ITA) echoes Vascotto’s sentiments: "We're beginning the 2011 season knowing that we can do well. In in Palma we started to know the new boat and we are discovering its potential. The boat seems good, but I emphasize that our strength is the crew, and the victory in the "warm up" regatta of Palma, is a demonstration of it.”

In the Soto 40 series the experience of the Class president and founder Norberto Alvarez Vitale (ARG) who will race in Europe for the first time with his team, will be up against Spain’s Iberdrola Sailing Team which have been training for nearly two weeks off Valencia, and Great Britian’s Ngoni owned and skippered by Tony Buckingham. And the pride of Portugal’s Bigamist Sailing Team, owned and skippered by the redoubtable Pedro Mendonca will be racing on home waters in the Soto 40.

Ashore
The Audi MedCup Circuit Open Village opens on Monday 16th May and is open each day through to Sunday 22nd May with free public access to a wide variety of interactive fun and informative displays including the LiveZone, a free access zone where the visitors will be able to enjoy a stage with a big screen where the best images of the event will be shown. There are live music concerts each evening.

All of the daily race action is broadcast live on the innovative Audi MedCup TV with live comment and commentary from the race course, supplemented by 3-D real time tracking from Virtual Eye.

The Sail&Play is designed for the little ones including a wind tunnel, a pool race with Micromagic boats, pedal boats for children, an inflatable TP52 for them to jump on, a giant puzzle as well as a climbing wall built on a 5 meters high buoy.

The Fun Zone has with PlayStations pods running GT5, pc´s loaded with a virtual skipper game, a grinder simulator, a workshop which teaches sailing by using games, and interactive screens to learn all about the Audi MedCup Circuit.

[MLovett]

15 May 2011


A glittering launch for the 2011 Audi MedCup season

The Atlantic waters off Cascais were sparkling in the Spring sunshine today Sunday as the majority of the fleets of TP52’s and new Soto 40’s took advantage of the near perfect training conditions to continue their work-up to the start of racing for the Cascais Trophy.A glittering start to the season is assured when two of the newest TP52’s are formally launched on Monday at midday.Italy’s Audi Azzura Sailing Team will have Princess Zahra Aga Khan as godmother, while model Eva Padberg and actor Jean Reno will share duties naming the Franco-German TP52 Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONEPrincess Zahra Aga Khan is President of the Board of Directors of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda which the Audi Azzurra Sailing Team represent and will be present to act as godmother.Eva Padberg was voted sexiest woman in the world in 2005 by readers of FHM and featured on the cover of GQ in 2006, while actor Jean Reno – Hollywood star of Mission Impossible, The Da Vinci Code, Léon, - is no stranger to the Audi MedCup Circuit after sailing as a guest in Cagliari, Sardinia last year.Both Vrolijk designed Audi supported boats will fly distinctive spinnakers carrying the message ‘Audi Ultra-Lightweight Technology.’After sailing on Monday, leading TP52 designer Rolf Vrolijk (NED) and a prominent designer from Audi will give an informal seminar on design trends, similarities and comparisons between the different marine and car technologies.A break in training?With no limitations on training days pre-regatta this season, some of the TP52 teams in particular have been training off Cascais now for several days and the brisk conditions have seen several breakages on the newly launched boats.“Of course it is better to learn what will break now before the regatta starts rather than once on the race course.” Comments Nacho Postigo (ESP) Audi MedCup director,“It is difficult to predict what the weather conditions will be like for the week, certainly a bit light and weak for the start of the week, then seeing more wind and maybe some rain for Thursday and Friday and then into sea breeze for the weekend.”“Training has been very good so far, but people have been breaking things and that has been good for them, learning about the boats before the start of racing. But it has been very changeable with wind from the north, and now today the wind has been coming from the east.”Double Olympic silver medallist Ross MacDonald (CAN) returns this season as tactician for José Cusí’s (ESP) iconic Bríbon (ESP) team which has a boat which is new to them, the former world championship winning Matador in the team’s 40th anniversary year:“It has not been an easy year to get boats together on to the start line, but for sure we can say the overall standard is up a step, it is just phenomenal. There will be little to choose between the boats and the new boats. It will be very interesting to see the Soto 40’s start training in earnest Monday.”“We have had a few days of good training since Wednesday. The conditions have been really typical of Cascais. Offshore it is breezy with good waves, very shifty and gusty. It is such a great spot.”“ I could not really tell you the differences between the new boats and this boat which is new to us, but is an ‘older’ boat. If there are any then it is very small. But I guess we will find out as time goes on, but if there is anything it is very minor.”“What is going to be critical here is day in day out there will be the potential for breakages and so we will be just looking to keep it all together, boat, equipment and the team itself.”“It is the 40th anniversary of the Bríbon team, so a big year for us, and for me and the guys on the boat we just want to do a quality job and keep our heads up all the way through the season.”The Audi MedCup Open Village opens Monday morning adjacent to the regatta site, by the Club Navale Cascais.The official practice race for the TP52’s is on Tuesday with racing for that fleet starting Wednesday and the Soto 40’s start racing Thursday.Programme, Cascais, Monday 16th May.12:00 - boat christenings Audi Azzurra Sailing Team and Audi A1 Team Powered by ALL4ONE
13:00 – sailing: Audi Azzurra Sailing Team and Audi A1 Team Powered by ALL4ONE 
16:30 - Audi Sailing Talk - VIP area with Rolf Vrolijk and Audi design team.
A glittering start to the season is assured when two of the newest TP52’s are formally launched on Monday at midday.

Italy’s Audi Azzura Sailing Team will have Princess Zahra Aga Khan as godmother, while model Eva Padberg and actor Jean Reno will share duties naming the Franco-German TP52 Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE.

Princess Zahra Aga Khan is President of the Board of Directors of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda which the Audi Azzurra Sailing Team represent and will be present to act as godmother. Eva Padberg was voted sexiest woman in the world in 2005 by readers of FHM and featured on the cover of GQ in 2006, while actor Jean Reno – Hollywood star of Mission Impossible, The Da Vinci Code, Léon, - is no stranger to the Audi MedCup Circuit after sailing as a guest in Cagliari, Sardinia last year.

Both Vrolijk designed Audi supported boats will fly distinctive spinnakers carrying the message ‘Audi Ultra-Lightweight Technology.’

After sailing on Monday, leading TP52 designer Rolf Vrolijk (NED) and a prominent designer from Audi will give an informal seminar on design trends, similarities and comparisons between the different marine and car technologies.

A break in training?
With no limitations on training days pre-regatta this season, some of the TP52 teams in particular have been training off Cascais now for several days and the brisk conditions have seen several breakages on the newly launched boats.

“Of course it is better to learn what will break now before the regatta starts rather than once on the race course.” Comments Nacho Postigo (ESP) Audi MedCup director,

“It is difficult to predict what the weather conditions will be like for the week, certainly a bit light and weak for the start of the week, then seeing more wind and maybe some rain for Thursday and Friday and then into sea breeze for the weekend.”

“Training has been very good so far, but people have been breaking things and that has been good for them, learning about the boats before the start of racing. But it has been very changeable with wind from the north, and now today the wind has been coming from the east.”

Double Olympic silver medallist Ross MacDonald (CAN) returns this season as tactician for José Cusí’s (ESP) iconic Bríbon (ESP) team which has a boat which is new to them, the former world championship winning Matador in the team’s 40th anniversary year:

“It has not been an easy year to get boats together on to the start line, but for sure we can say the overall standard is up a step, it is just phenomenal. There will be little to choose between the boats and the new boats. It will be very interesting to see the Soto 40’s start training in earnest Monday.”

“We have had a few days of good training since Wednesday. The conditions have been really typical of Cascais. Offshore it is breezy with good waves, very shifty and gusty. It is such a great spot.”

“I could not really tell you the differences between the new boats and this boat which is new to us, but is an ‘older’ boat. If there are any then it is very small. But I guess we will find out as time goes on, but if there is anything it is very minor.”

“What is going to be critical here is day in day out there will be the potential for breakages and so we will be just looking to keep it all together, boat, equipment and the team itself.”

The Audi MedCup Open Village opens Monday morning adjacent to the regatta site, by the Club Navale Cascais. The official practice race for the TP52’s is on Tuesday with racing for that fleet starting Wednesday and the Soto 40’s start racing Thursday.

[MLovett]

18 May 2011

Different targets for Day 1?

It is Race Day 1 of the 2011 Audi MedCup Circuit in Cascais and the one unwanted visitor has been the overnight rain which has persisted into the morning, with showere still doing their best to dampen spirits.


But the mood is very upbeat. Some of the teams are confident that today’s two TP52 races will be a chance to simply deliver what they have been doing in training, others know that it will be another trip into relative unknowns, trying to galvanise the dynamics of crew work and finding boat speeds across the wind conditions.

Seven TP52’s will take to the start line of Race 1 which is scheduled a little after 1300hrs. The race area is due to be race area 2, that out to the west of Cabo Raso, the small headland to the west of the Bay of Cascais. With winds forecast between NNW and NNE through the day then that should give a little more open water, but for sure it will be shifty and puffy, a real opportunist’s first day.

The five Soto 40’s will race their Practice Race after the start of the 52 Series’ Race 1, following the established format: two practice starts then practice race.
If Audi Azzurra Sailing Team (ITA) have shown to be the form team for the moment, the performance so far of the new Quantum Racing has been pretty modest by the high standards set by the 2008 Audi MedCup champions and current TP52 World Champions.

Ed Reynolds, coach, project manager and President of Quantum Sails, explains his perspective on the problems of being behind their desired schedule with a new boat and a crew of which half are new this season:

"First day, we are really just hoping to get out of today and that is about it. There are so many unknowns with the team, and just the dynamics of the team, so we would be really comfortable to come in 'above the fold' if you will, out of today. I know that we will consistently get better and better. One of the issues has been our boat construction. We did two boats at the same builder and for a variety of reasons we are probably about three weeks behind schedule. And that starts steamrolling.....you can't finalise your sail shapes, you can't the practices, and you can't get all the things you want to get done before the first event. So we are not the only ones in that position, so there is really no crying about it."

"In 2008 we were similar. You know that building these boats, there is nothing in them, but they are so complex and so complicated, all the systems. Last year when we had the new deck it put us behind a little bit, but we had an absolutely consistent crew, we had the same crew for three years. But here, we have a brand new boat and half he crew new, there are a lot of things to work out. I know that we are going to get there."
"It is not difficult, no, here we are in Cascais racing sailboats, that is not difficult. There is nothing difficult, it is just challenging. We have some challenges to work through, but I am really confident in the group we have and the equipment we have, but I feel we have some exposures early in the season."
"This changes my role for the moment, a little bit. Terry was dialled in to everything, it was automatic. I think that dynamic still exists, but everyone is kind of finding their way, feeling their way through. So it will take a little bit more, as with everything I do I like to be hands on early, and get the hands off as quick as possible."


Weather for the day seems to suggest an 80% chance of racing with between 8 and 16 knots of wind from between 340 deg and 010 deg.

[Stuart Streuli]

Iberdrola power to early lead in Soto 40, consistent Audi Azurra Sailing Team lead TP52's

Cascais revealed perfect racing conditions for the debut of the Soto 40 class in Europe delivering 14-20 knots of NW’ly winds, bright sunshine and a moderate swell rolling in from the Atlantic. Just as the weather and sea state were to order for the exciting one new design fleet, so too they were equally ideal for the second day of racing for the TP52’s

Spain’s Iberdrola Sailing Team fulfilled expectations that the European team who have had their boat longest and trained hardest might prevail, but even though they lead at each mark and won back-to-back races, they were never out of reach and the two Portuguese teams which have only had their boats for a matter of days both had second places and were certainly in contention.

In the 52 Series it was again consistency rather than brilliance which won the day, this time the pair of second places for Audi Azzurra Sailing Team was enough to scale the leaderboard to top the seven boat fleet, one point ahead of Germany’s Container.

Over four races there have now been four different winners, as first Bribon and then Quantum Racing both proved the virtue of sharp starting and being able to gain early control of the right, inshore side of the opening beat.

Both times the winners were able to extend to win comprehensively in the fresh breezes which presented some brilliantly exciting downwind sailing.

Quantum Racing’s win in the second race was momentarily in jeopardy when two of their ultra-faired stanchions snapped, almost plunging their crew into the water. Had that happened their 250 metres lead would have very quickly disappeared.

But the crew clung to each other, stayed out of the sea, and the world champions’ first win of 2011 elevates them to third, two points off the lead and one point behind Markus Wieser and the crew of overnight leaders Container (GER)

In the first race, helm Gonzalez Aurajo (ESP) in concert with tactician Ross MacDonald (CAN) did a smart job of winning the committee-boat, right hand end of the start line and they were able to peel away to the right early, capitalising quickly to lead around the windward mark by 19 seconds ahead of Jochen Schuemann’s Audi Sailing Team powered by ALL4ONE.

Audi Azzurra Sailing Team (ITA) were not so good off the line but worked their way up from fifth at the windward mark with a good first run and second beat to take second with Russia’s Synergy Sailing Team in third.

With the breeze stiffening for the second race Quantum Racing won the start cleanly and were also able to dictate terms to the chasing pack before the first windward mark, new skipper-helm Ed Baird (USA) collecting his first Audi MedCup winning gun.

In the Soto 40 fleet second places were shared equally between the home Portuguese crews as Bigamist finished behind Iberdrola in the first race and Francesco Lobato’s team on XXII Portuguese Sailing Team secured second in the second contest despite finishing with a rip in the lower sections of their gennaker.

Boat handling was key in the Sotos, acknowledged Iberdrola’s skipper helm Jose Maria ‘Pichu’ Torcida, not least gybing the very large gennaker without a pedestal grinder.

The Spanish crew were always slicker than their opposition, but in raw boat speed terms the Soto 40 fleet looks to start on the same page, offering a huge amount of excitement and intensive sailing for a more modest budget.

Cascais Trophy
52 Series
Day 2
1.Audi Azzurra Sailing Team (ITA), 5+1+2+2= 10 points
2. Container (GER), 2+2+4+3 = 11 points
3. Quantum Racing (USA), 3+3+5+1= 12 points
4. Synergy Russian Sailing Team (RUS), 1+6+3+4= 14 points
5. Bribón (ESP), 4+7+1+6= 18 points
6. Ràn (SWE), 6+4+6+5= 21 points
7. Audi Sailing Team Powered by All4One (EUR), 7+5+7+7= 26 points
8. Gladiator (GBR), DNC+DNC+DNC+DNC=36 points

40 Series
Day 1
1.Iberdrola Team (ESP), 1+1=2
2.XXII Portuguese Sailing Team (POR), 3+2=5
3.Bigamist (POR), 2+4=6
4.Patagonia (ARG), 4+3=7
5.Ngoni (GBR), 5+5=10

Quotes:
José María ‘Pichu’ Torcida (ESP), skipper, Iberdrola Team (ESP): “We really can´t ask for more, we had two great starts and we sailed in the right sides. The key was going downwind, we knew that we couldn´t make any mistakes there. The first race had 18-20 knots and the second one 20-22, so it was key for us not to make mistakes at that speed, that´s why we got such a distance from the rest of the boats. It was easier for us to hold our advantage the second time sailing upwind. It´s a very close competition, we are a bit ahead of the rest handling the boat because we´ve had more practice, but we know that there´s good teams that will improve their performances in the next races. Today was a perfect way to start, a good wind, sunshine and waves. The key for us was in the manoeuvres and there was not much difference between the boats and the racing is close and quite tough. It was a good day for the team.
“ I think the manoeuvres and downwind speed, we were very comfortable with the boat.
For these type of boats which are very flat, very wide with big kites with twenty knots it was very exciting. We probably only had a couple of days training in these kind of conditions in Valencia, not quite as much wind.
It is difficult in the gybes because you don’t have a grinder, so we need a lot of coordination between the trimmers and the kite and with the helmsman because it is not difficult to lose the rudder.”

Vasco Vascotto (ITA), strategist, Audi Azzurra Sailing Team (ITA): “The difference between yesterday and today lies in the fact that we sailed a lot better, with a cooler head and a warm heart, a key combination to finish well. We have to keep going like we are so far, trying not to make mistakes like the ones we made in the first races. We have tofind a way to sail clean. We are not always going to be so lucky as we were today, and that means that we have to keep the same attitude that we´ve shown. We had currents, wind, waves… everything that you need to sail and have fun in the boat”.

Ed Baird (USA), skipper-helm, Quantum Racing (USA): “It was a lot of fun, the breeze was up. In the second race we had a little jump at the starting line, enough to sneak out in front of the group near the weather mark. The boys did a tremendous job at the first run. Somehow, we got a puff or two extra from the other guys and that was the end of the race. Perfect conditions for this kind of boats, they go great upwind and downwind. It was tons of fun”.

Adrian Stead (GBR) tactician Quantum Racing (USA): “It was a good result for us, a good result for Ed (Baird) and one to give the team some confidence. Really although we were quite early to launch the boat we have ended up behind where we wanted to be because of various different issues. It could have been worse for us when we lost the stanchions, we just managed to save things which was important, but we had a little in hand.”

Ignacio Triay (ESP), trimmer, Bribón (ESP): “We had a perfect start in the first race, it´s that simple. We got ahead of the fleet, and once you´re in that position, if you have enough speed, you stretch and stretch and you just keep going, it´s just a matter of not making mistakes handling your boat. In the second one we got trapped and they've pushed us out by the committee boat. That made us start in the last place and in the bad side. Even in that situation the boat had speed, so we managed to get close to the fleet and made a glorious first stretch downwind. We passed ALL4ONE and reached RÀN, but he missed a few more meters to pass them. We are happy with the boat´s speed, today we´ve shown that it´s a good start what counts. A bad one means a disaster”.