Good day for Orlanda and Lexus

Two TP52 races held today in the Breitling MedCup

Under very light conditions again today's two races were sailed off Puerto Portals, Mallorca, Spain on the Regatta Breitling, the third event scoring for the Breitling MedCup TP52. The first one was won by Orlanda Olympus, the second by Lexus, skippered by Emirates Team New Zealand helm Dean Barker.

The leader of the first regatta remained in first place from rounding the first weather mark. But it was then Orlanda-Olympus, skippered by Tommaso Chieffi, with the help of tactician Lorenzo Bresani, that took over, followed by a tight group made up of Vicente Tirado's Caixa-Galicia, Leche Pascual in third skippered by Italian Vasco Vascotto, and a hard driven Lexus. The local boat, Siemens followed not far behind this group followed by Aifos, skippered by Ricardo Maldonado.

On the downwind leg the Italians managed to maintain their lead with Caixa Galicia slipping into when they were overtaken by Leche Pascual. Tactician on Caixa Galicia for this regatta is BMW Oracle Racing's ousted skipper, John Kostecki. Lexus was in fourth place followed by Bambakou and Cristabella. The last three were Aifos, Bribon and Siemens.

Orlanda-Olympus remained in the lead despite the varying wind direction but Leche Pascual was a very close second place followed by Lexus and i. John Coumantaros’ Bambakou finished fifth with Aifos hanging off their stern and Cristabella tightly behind. Eigth was Bribon, followed by Siemens and in tenth place was Atalanti XV helmed by Paul Cayard who had to retire from the race, with a problem with one of their stays.

At 14:40 the second Race commenced with winds reaching 10 knots from the south. Caixa Galicia was over early and spent the rest of the race trying to make up ground.

Once again Orlanda-Olympus led at the weather mark, but the pressure was from Lexus, by a pleasantly surprised John Coumantaros on Bambakou and Bribon skippered by His Majesty King Juan Carlos. Leche Pascual were in fifth place due to a not so good windward leg, followed by Cristabella, Aifos, Siemens and finally Caixa Galicia.

In the third leg of the race things looked pretty much the same for the first three boats: Lexus, Orlanda and Bambakou but Leche Pascual managed to overtake Bribon and move into fifth position.

By the end Lexus had moved ahead to take the win followed by Orlanda- Olympus and Bribon.

“Our day today has been good, specially coming after a pretty rough day yesterday with a few problems and scenarios, but today we got to act together and sail along so we are very pleased with the results, "Kevin Hall, Lexus' (and Emirates Team New Zealand) navigator:

Tomasso Chieffi, Orlanda Olympus' tactician said: “It’s been a very positive day and we are very happy with today’s results, a first and a second. Therefore we are really satisfied.”

While Vicente Tirado, owner of Caixa Galicia added: “We did really well in the first one, fighting for the victory until the end, although finally we finished fourth. In the second one we had a premature start that made us far behind the fleet. Although we got to improve our position it wasn’t enough. We are still half way through the championship, so we hope to recover positions in the near future.”

Results:
Boat Skipper PTS Prueba1 PTS P2 PTS P3 Total pts
1.ORLANDA-OLYMPUS TOMASSO CHIEFFI 7.00 10.00
9.00 26.00
2.LECHE PASCUAL VASCO VASCOTTO 10.00 9.00 7.00 26.00
3.LEXUS DEAN BARKER 2.00 8.00 10.00 20.00
4.AIFOS RICARDO ALVAREZ 9.00 5.00 4.00 18.00
5.CRISTABELLA JOHN COOK 8.00 4.00 5.00 17.00
6.BAMBAKOU JOHN COUMANTAROS 5.00 6.00 6.00 17.00
7. CAIXA GALICIA ROBERTO BERMUDEZ 6.00 7.00 3.00 16.00
8.BRIBON S.M. JUAN CARLOS DE BORBÓN 3.00 Pts. 3.00 8.00 14.00
9.SIEMENS PEDRO PERELLÓ 1.00 Pts. 2.00 2.00 4.00
10. ATALANTI XV PAUL CAYARD 4.00. 0.00 0.00 4.00

(The first one gets 10.00 points- as there are 10 participants-, the second one 9.00 and so on)
General Ranking, high resolution pictures, interviews and more at www.medcup.org