For some time the Lanzarote forecast for day two of the 44Cup Calero Marinas showed conditions exceeding the RC44 class’ theoretical upper wind limit of 25 knots. Anticipating this PRO Maria Torrijo brought the start time forward to 09:30.
As the race got underway the wind off Puerto Calero was already into the high teens with the odd gust into the early 20s. Daniel Calero’s newbies on Calero Sailing Team won the pin from Chris Bake’s Team Aqua while Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika started well at the weather end of the line. In the drag race out to the left, those at the extreme ends edged ahead on the lifted starboard tack. Ultimately by the time the left hand group tacked back, Team Nika was clear ahead. By the top mark the overall leader after day one was still ahead, with Nico Poons’ Charisma and Calero Sailing Team close behind.
Team Nika remained in front down the run, taking the right gate mark and the right side initially up the second beat. While the Calero team dropped back on the first run, Charisma remained in contact with Prosikhin’s team with Team Ceeref Vaider up to third.
By the time the RC44s reached the top mark the wind had firmly built into the early 20s with sustained gusts of 25+ knots and a developed sea state, complete with spume forming between the waves, indicative of big conditions. Despite this there were fortunately no big broaches today, as occurred to Aleph Racing and Charisma yesterday, but the conditions were nonetheless challenging with blistering boat speeds at times peaking at 24+ knots as the nimble RC44s took off down waves.
“I struggled a little bit yesterday with starting, so we concentrated on that before the race and we had a good start… We wanted to be top of the line as I thought we’d hold the right longer than the left. There was also a tiny bit of bias at that end. Plus we have good pace, so holding the right a bit more, we could just push over them and then we got into the left shift, from the wind coming off the land…”
