Vascotto back in command

Right calls made on Mutua Madrilena for double points scoring coastal race at the Copa del Rey Camper Audi

Vasco Vascotto and the crew of Mutua Madrilena made the best of the reshuffle as the TP52 fleet beat to their final windward mark to win the second section of the 27 miles double points scoring costal race at the 26th Copa del Rey Camper Audi today.

Added to an eighth on the first section, it proved a strong performance from Mutua Madrilena, returning them to the top of the leaderboard with a ten point lead over Alberto Roemmers' Siemens.

"It is part of this game," said Vascotto. "Yesterday was the day of recovery, even after the finish line, we keep fighting up to nine o'clock to recover some points. Today we sail a really nice race and sail the wind shifts well: My tactician Michelle Paoletti did an amazing job - he was waiting for the left hand shift after Puerto Portals and he called me to go to the left and so he did a fantastic job. We expected that it go to the left because we were sure that the wind outside was much more left than the 220 degrees that was inside the bay to Portals. We were quite sure that we catch the 170 degrees 180 degrees that was offshore when we came in and also there was more pressure."

At the same time Siemens got stuck on the right and made a big loss.

"That is just the game," continued Vascotto. "It is like politics, somebody goes to the left and somebody goes to the right and somebody has to win! It is tough, it is a really tough fleet but we made the right choice today and we are sure that tomorrow will be a completely different day and we are waiting to show that we are able to lead the fleet still. You cannot go out to sail safe in the fleet. If you do you will be 20th. Here nobody is safe, everybody pushes so hard."


Italian dynamo - Vasco Vascotto

Alberto Roemmers' new Judel Vrolijk-designed Siemens, the overnight regatta leader where Paul Cayard is calling tactics, was the biggest casualty today when they stuck closer to the shore on the final upwind leg to the mark southeast of the Isle de Sech. From seventh place they lost more than five minutes, slipping from seventh to finish 18th at the finish line and relinquish their overall lead.

"I went too close to the bay - there was no wind on the shore and it was a big mistake," Cayard admitted later with a grimace. "Its kind of a 50-50, but what you do is watch the thing develop a little bit - Caixa and Bribon and all who were trying to get to the right were losing and suffering. Vasco never went there, he went all the way out to the left and the split was so great that by the time he got the wind none of us could get back out there. I went the hardest right so of course so I took the biggest gamble. You never know, but usually when there is a coastline you go to the coast which is usually the rule of thumb, and it was sort of developing when Caixa and Bribon were all going that way. It led me to believe it was going to work, but of course it didn't. We had a nice lead and now we are back tight again."

" There will be a lot of mistakes made still so there is plenty more to get frustrated about or celebrate," Cayard continued. "Its just a little bit hard to throw away so many points in one day that's all."

And the coastal race's best points scorer was Balearia which passed the midway scoring gate first and hung on to finish fourth. A punchy first beat from Thierry Peponnet calling tactics for Gonzalo Araujo, saw Balearia fighting hard from the pin end of the line and making a perfect layline call for the first mark. This proved a solid platform from an inspired performance from the 2005 vintage boat. They now lie eighth overall, one place behind the new Artemis skippered by Russell Coutts which had a tenth to the gate and 13th finish.

Peponnet recalled: "We had a perfect strategy at the start: We started at the pin and went left. As an older boat we find that if we start near the middle of the fleet we have some problems to keep our position, so when we have nobody to leeward we are more able to sail fast. So we really fight and liked the leeward position. We tacked 45 seconds before the layline and that was perfect, the wind kept turning left as we expected and it was the perfect layline."

He continued: "And we did a really good job on the second run, waiting for the left wind coming and it came 20 degrees left, and so we were a little bit over the layline, we covered the fleet keeping between the mark and them.

"The last downwind was not easy to manage. The wind came more right and we managed to keep our position on Bribon. After that the last upwind leg it is usually better to go to the right, to stay with the right shift on the right, but outside it was much more windy and much more to the left. We started to play on the right, but we tacked across behind five boats to take our chance on the left with more pressure, and in the end we were very close to lead again ahead of Mutua Madrilena at the final top mark.

"I think we suffer most downwind, but over the last week since Breitling Regatta we have improved a lot. We have some new spinnakers, and we think we are better than two weeks ago but still sometimes we are good and sometimes we have big holes and the boat is very hard to build speed again when we gybe or in waves. But for a three year old boat I think we get close to 100% of the boat's performance most of the time. All of the crew, and Gonzalo (Araujo) on the helm, is doing a really good job.

"We just can't follow the other guys, we always have to work hard to be in the advance of the others for the tactics. Sometimes we are good, sometimes we are bad."

Peponnet cut his losses admirably when the breeze filled more offshore on that final beat, and took five sterns, but this early forfeit was returned as they chased hard on the transom of Mutua Madrilena at the final turning mark. Balearia lost a little to the superior design and sail firepower on the long reach to the finish off the Palma harbour entrance, crossing fourth. Their five points aggregate for the day was one better than Ian Walker and the crew of Eamon Coneely's Irish flagged Patches which was fourth at the scoring gate and second at the finish line.

Results:

Pos	Boat	Owner/skipper	Nat	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	Tot
				W/L					Coastal
1	MUTUA MADRILEÑA	Vasco Vascotto	ESP	1	2	1	8	10 RDG	6	1	29
2	SIEMENS	Alberto Roemmers	A/E	3	1	2	3	5	7	18	39
3	BRIBON	Jose Cusi	ESP	9	3	10	5	4	2	9	42
4	CxG CORPORACIÓN CAIXAGALICIA	Vicente Tirado	ESP	2	13	9	4	6	3	8	45
5	PLATOON	Harm Muller-Spreer	GER	4	4	3	18	9	5	3	46
6	STAY CALM	Stuart Robinson	GBR	7	6	6	7	3	12	6	47
7	ARTEMIS	Torbjorn Torqnvist	SWE	11	9	5	1	1	10	13	50
8	BALEARIA	Adolfo Utor	ESP	8	17	11	15	2	1	4	58
9	PATCHES	Eamon Conneely	IRE	5	12	17	6	15	4	2	61
10	VALLE ROMANO - MEAN MACHINE	Peter de Ridder	MON	6	11	4	19	7	13	12	72
11	BIGAMIST 6	Peedro Mendonca	POR	14	5	12	11	8	9	17	76
12	ANONIMO Q8	Riccardo Simoneschi	ITA	16	8	8	9	13	15	11	80
13	GLORY	John Buchan	USA	10	19	22	12	10	8	7	88
14	CRISTABELLA	John Cook	GBR	20	7	13	10	11	14	20	95
15	ONO	Inaki Castaner	ESP	13	20	7	13	16	16	21	106
16	CAM, CAJA MEDITERRÁNEO	Fernando Leon	ESP	23 OCS	15	18	2	12	18	19	107
17	TAU CERAMICA-ANDALUCIA	Javier Banderas, Rafael Diaz	ESP	18	18	16	14	18	19	10	113
18	C-QUADRAT - ASTRO	Rainer Wilhelm	AUS	15	16	14	22	17	17	16	117
19	AIFOS	Jaime Rodriguez-Toubes	ESP	19	10	15	17	22	22	14	119
20	RUSAL - Synergy	Alexey Nikolaev	RUS	23 OCS	22	21	21	20	11	5	123
21	FRAM XVI	King Harald of Norway	NOR	17	21	20	16	19	20	15	128
22	VALARS	Serguei Shevtsov	RUS	12	14	19	20	21	21	22	129
23	BAMBAKOU	John Coumantaros	USA	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	175
24	WINDQUEST	Doug de Vos	USA	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	25 DNC	175

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