When Russell Coutts got the chance to design a boat that would be the future of sailing, he didn’t design a wing-sailed catamaran. When Coutts designed the RC44 it was before he had experienced his multihull ephiphany but nevertheless, the class is strong with a combination of rich blokes and tame racing sailors.
The 2012 RC44 Championship has been won by Team Aqua with a round to spare.
As Team Aqua (GBR) left the dock, there were two more races to sail in the shifting 8-10 knot NW sea-breeze, and no discards allowed, a double figure finish could easily wipe out their 16 point cushion.
The first race didn’t go to plan. The team rounded the windward mark in 13th. An early gybe got Team Aqua into a right hand shift moving the team up to 10th at the leeward gate. By the finish they had gained two more places to finish eighth.
With just one more race to sail they were 14 points clear. This meant that baring disqualification or breakage– they had done enough to win in Croatia and become 2011 RC44 Tour Champions.
Behind Aqua the battle was fierce, any of the next five boats, Artemis Racing (SWE Torbjorn Tornqvist/Morgan Larson ), Team CEEREF (SLO Igor Lah/Michele Ivaldi), Aleph Sailing Team (FRA Hugues Lepic/Mathieu Richard) and ORACLE Racing (USA Stuart Hebb/Russell Coutts), were in with a shot for second place.
For those who care about what happened. The press release described it like this:
In the opener Artemis reached the top mark third, but under-laid slowing right up and letting ORACLE Racing roll over the top of them. But an early gybe paid dividends, rounding the leeward gate ahead of the early leader Peninsula Petroleum (GBR John Bassadone/Paolo Cian). From there on in they had a comfortable lead; the win moved them up to second overall. A seventh for CEEREF dropped them to third. ORACLE Racing’s fourth meant they were just two points off the Swedes. The French team fared worst, only managing a 10th, dropping them out of the medals into fifth.
In the finale ORACLE Racing started at the pin, Artemis was late – an early tack onto port and they hit the right hand corner. At the top mark Katusha led from Artemis, Aqua had to duck both, rounding third. Artemis retained their position to the finish, securing second place at the Adris RC44 Cup.
In the battle for the final podium place, CEEREF had one of their worst days of the regatta so far but did enough to stay ahead of ORACLE Racing to take third overall, the American’s 13th place dropped them to fifth behind Aleph.
It was a season that owner Chris Bake described:
“Incredible! Winning is a vindication of the commitment and hard work of everyone on the team, it’s really nice to put yourself against this level of competition and be recognised as such, so I’m pretty happy with it. We will defiantly be back next year to try and defend our title.”
ORACLE Racing stay second on the overall title standings, two points ahead of CEEREF who are in turn two point clear of Artemis Racing.
The final event of the 2011 RC44 Championship Tour, which doubles as the RC44 World Championships, will take place in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote from 16-20th November.
The event is hosted by the Calero family and the home team, Islas Canarias Puerto Calero, with newly married Daniel Calero at the helm will be looking break Team Aqua’s dominance and win on home waters.
