Brits pull back

"Glamour day" for Invictus Challenge finally at the C-Class Catamaran Championships

It should have been all over today at the International C-Class Catamaran Championships in Bristol, Rhode Island.

For Duncan MacLane and Steve Clark on the impeccible Cogito it was. They roundly beat Tornado sailors Lars Guck and Stanley Schreyer on Patient Lady VI to win this year's Winners of the Little America's Cup Trophy. This trophy is an impressive cuboid of crystal which has had the names of all the past Little America's Cup winners and a 3D rendering of Cogito etched into its insides by laser.

While the mood in the British camp has not been one of optimism having lost the last two days of match racing, some tweaks to the rig this morning and an increase in wind strength saw the Airbus team's Invictus Challenge make a remarkable comeback to beat the Australians on Team Ronstan 2-1 in today's races.

"We had to go back and have one last crack," commented helmsman Paul Larsen. "She couldn’t be as big a dog as she was looking. So we came at first light this morning and tore her open and got into the camber mechanism and started tweaking other things. Then we went out today, which was looking like the biggest glass out you’ve ever seen thinking nothing was going to come of it and then the breeze started to fill in..."

The first race looked promising despite there being no wind. The Brit and Aussie catamarans were neck and neck heading for the top mark, despite the light conditions which have proved not to be to the liking of Invictus Challenge. But they failed to reach the top mark within 20 minutes and the race was canned.

The race was restarted when the wind had piped up to 11-12 knots and the two boats got away after some good pre-start jockeying. Team Ronstan led round the top mark, but Invictus Challenge were able to make better VMG downwind to the leeward mark sailing deeper and faster than the Australians and, were just able to force Colby and Smith to gybe at the mark, they snuck inside to round first.

Once again up the beat the Australians proved to be the superior boat but again Paul Larsen and Helena Darvelid were able to claw their way back on the final run to sneak ahead to win the race by less than a second.

"He came smoking over the top, flying a hull and did a big bear away," recounted Larson on the tactics Colby was employing to coax them up on the final run. "I knew it was close and the two guns were right on top of each other. And there was a big WHOOP from the team and thank God the boat has actually done something respectable. It’s incredible. Everyone is stoked."

For the second race the breeze had picked up to 13 knots and in the pre-start Colby was trying to keep himself between Invictus Challenge and the Committee boat. This race didn't go as well for the Airbus team.

"We had heaps of height on them, but we couldn’t get the thing to generate the boat speed, so they outpaced us round," described Larsen. "Then we blew a tack with a problem with the main sheet and they sailed away with that one." The mainsheet on Invictus Challenge is double ended and they mistakenly grabbed the wrong end.

With a 'nothing to lose' attitude going into the deciding third race Larsen and Darvelid made an additional changes in their tactics as if the Australians took this race they would have won three days and the petite-finals overall. The boards on Invictus Challenge are oversized and so they decided to lift them up more going up the beat and Larsen said he was throwing the boat through gybes more as if it were a conventional beach cat rather than a grunty C-Class catamaran with a delicate wing rig.

"We took off the line, both at the Committee boat, we had a lot of height and were able to crack off a little bit and the boat started to feel fast again but we were still well above them. And at our first crossing it was a neck and neck crossing. Then the Australian boat started to have some breakages and they lost their main sheet and just as they came to cross us they dumped the crew in the soup, but they got him back on board."

With Australian boat suffering gear breakages Invictus Challenge led around the course to go 2-1 up and take the day. With a 2-1 scoreline in the match racing, Invictus Challenge must win Saturday and Sunday's racing if they are to take the Petit Finals. With 15-20 knots forecast for tomorrow this now looks possible if they can hold their boat together.

"We always knew that when the breeze picks up the boat starts to go alright," said Larsen. "But it’s all the work we put in to chase the weakest link through the boat to be able to have a boat we can throw around now. While the Australian boat is having a few little breakages, our boat is starting to feel pretty robust. It was really fantastic to see everyone [in the team] at the end of it go ‘My God, we’ve won two races'. And the boat was looking fantastic, going along with a hull in the air. And we didn’t break much."

Ironically many of the British team didn't watch today's racing thinking that the event was done, dusted and over for them. There is no doubt they will be on the water to witness tomorrow's outcome.