The mountain of Montjuïc and its eponymous ‘Castell’ that loom over the city of Barcelona helped dictate the conditions on the third day of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup, after overnight storms gave way to a westerly Atlantic airflow that bent round the iconic Barcelona landmark, creating a shifty, puffy, and difficult-to-read racecourse.
There was plenty on the line and much to play for amongst the Invited Teams, representing yacht clubs from around the world, with a four-way battle for the podium and automatic qualification for Friday’s Semi-Finals to meet the top three America’s Cup teams at stake.
To get there required real skill with the westerly breeze going from 19 knots puffs to dead calm – and even saw the abandonment and re-running of the seventh race. It was a pure sailing challenge and the world’s finest women’s sailors rose to the challenge
Swedish Challenge powered by Artemis Technologies started the day in fourth place overall after an out-of-sorts opening four races on Sunday, despite having been tipped for success before the tournament.
Today they proved that pre-regatta time in the boat matters, scoring four race wins from four races, showing consistency, excellent racecraft and near-perfect manoeuvres across the range of conditions. Sweden moved from fourth to first in the standings after a dominant second race win and simply extended away to win at a canter.
Speaking afterwards Vilma Bobeck, starboard helm of the Swedish Challenge came ashore with a sense of relief after a stunning performance, saying: “I think we just put everything together out there today and finally got to show what we’ve been training for all summer and what we’re actually capable of doing this week. We still have a few things to go over that we can improve on further but we’re just looking forward to the semis now.”
Talking about the conditions, Bobeck reflected on what the key differences were for the Swedish team, saying: “It was really tricky out there, shifty and gusty. It was a massive range of both wind and shifts so it really kept us on our toes. Having our heads out of the boat was for sure a winning move and it suited us very well as both me and Julia (Gross) are from a small lake up in Stockholm where it’s just like this, so it felt almost like sailing at home!”
Behind the sensational Swedish, the battle for the remaining two podium places was intense. Overnight leaders JAJO Team DutchSail steadily improved through the session and confirmed their runners-up spot and place in the Semi-Finals with consistent results, leaving a battle raging behind them between Sail Team BCN and Team Andoo Australia.
Willemijn Offerman, port helm for JAJO Team DutchSail, was delighted to be in the Semi-Finals of the Puig Women’s America’s Cup, saying: “I’m so proud of the whole team not only on the boat but also on the shore, we felt so much support and it’s incredible that we made it through.
«I think we’ve shown here what our strength is, and we have strong belief. It was quite intense in the waves; the wind was so up and down and the angle of the waves made it so hard to sail. I think all of us are super happy that we have another day on the boat later this week and will just enjoy that day and we will see what the result is.”