Caixa Galicia takes the lead

After the first day of the first race of the first Breitling MedCup regatta for the TP52s

Seven Transpac 52s, from Chile, Italy, Greece, USA and Spain, performed spectacularly in the two races sailed today in Punta Ala, Italy, the first occasion the rapidly growing Mediterranean TP52 fleet have lined up. Even on the first day the similarity between the boats' performances and the great importance of tactics and crew work were evident, with any mistakes heavily paid for.

At the end of today’s racing, Caixa Galicia leads, with a one point advantage over Atalanti XV owned by George Andreadis, beating the Pisco Sour team by two points.

Behind the tight leader group, in fourth place was the Farr-designed Bribon-Movistar, owned by Jose Cusi, and in fifth Russell Coutts’s team, Lexus, followed by the Orlanda-Olympus in sixth, and the USA’s Bambakou bringing up the rear.

At 12.45 the starting signal was given in ideal sailing conditions - a west-northeasterly wind, of up to 14 knots.

As in both races today, the start of the first race saw the Chilean Pisco Sour, skippered by Vasco Vascotto, take the lead in a closely fought leg. Atalanti and Caixa Galicia were behind, chased hard by Orlando Olympus. The leaders were closely followed round the course by three time America's Cup winner skipper, Russell Coutts, on Lexus, then by Bribon-Movistar.

Bringing up the rear was Bambakou, who were relegated to the last position due to a tactical error and found themselves unable to make up the distance lost after they had snagged a buoy when they were in the fight for third.

In the second race a drop in wind speed resulted much more position changing around the course. On the first beat Bribon-Movistar were only a boat length behind Lexus, with Caixa Galicia and Pisco Sour fighting for second place. At the leeward mark Bribon left the gybe a few metres late allowing Lexus to squeeze through, Coutts rounding the leeward mark in first position, with Caixa behind.

But the lead for Coutts’ team was shortlived, after a decision to go left up the next beat, didn’t turn out as planned. As a result Lexus went from being in first position to being last, passing the weather mark almost three minutes after Caixa Galicia who held the lead until the end of the race.

Bribon crossed the finish line just over a minute after Caixa Galicia followed by Atalanti and Lexus who managed to miraculously recover, with Pisco Sour, Bambakou and Orlanda behind.

“It’s been a very competitive day’s racing, and I am very happy for myself and the team," said Vicente Tirado, owner of Caixa Galicia. "We sailed two good races and everything has turned out perfectly. In the first race we were fighting for a leading position , although an incident with Bambakou meant we lost three lengths. We also lost a length on the last downwind leg, but we can comfort ourselves in the fact that we sailed a fabulous second race, and are honoured to be the first crew to lead the results table in the 'Premiere' of the Breitling MedCup.”

Vasco Vascotto, skipper of Pisco Sour, gave his views: "The first thing this Italian skipper did at the end of the racing, was to pick up the phone to call the ship builder, Ximo Lopez, to let him know the news about their win in the first leg. It’s like starting school again, working out how things work. The decision to stay right turned out to be a good one, as we got into first position and then we just had to keep an eye on the rest of the fleet.”

Results:

Pos	Boat	SKIPPER	R1	R2	Tot
1	Caixa Galicia	Roberto Bermúdez de Castro	5	7	12
2	Atalanti XV	Paul Cayard	6	5	11
3	Pisco Sour	Vasco Vascotto		3	10
4	Bribón-MoviStar	Ross McDonald	2	6	8
5	Lexus	Russell Coutts	3	4	7
6	Orlanda-Olympus	Tommaso Chieffi	4	1	5
7	Bambakoo	Craig Healny	1	2	3