Siemens nails it

Alberto Roemmers' TP52 scores her first regatta win at the Copa del Rey

Saturday August 4th 2007, Author: Andi Robertson, Location: none selected

Alberto Roemmers' Argentinian owned, Spanish sponsored Siemens clinched the overall title in the 22 strong grand prix TP52 class at the 26th Copa del Rey Camper Audi today on the Bay of Palma.

20 years after he last won the Mediterranean's premier trophy on the Maxi Il Moro di Venezia, Paul Cayard called the tactics successfully for owner Roemmers and skipper-helmsman Guilermo Parada, winning a closely fought series by just six points from Vasco Vascotto's 2005 Breitling MedCup winning team on Mutua Madrilena.

A fifth place in the first race today meant Siemens entered the final race of 10 with a five points lead over Mutua Madrilena. Caught flat-footed on the start line Cayard conjured a third from a poor opening, while Mutua Madrilena's pair of sixth places left them second with Roberto Bermudez de Castro's Corporacion CxG Caixa Galicia finishing third overall. For the second successive regatta Torbjorn Tornqvist's Artemis won the Corinthian Trophy.

Caixa Galicia still lead the overall standings on the 2007 Breitling MedCup TP52 Circuit.

With the modest southerly seabreeze fluctuating between six and 10 knots through the day, the SM Juan Carlos skippered Bribon looked for all the world to have won the first race today and in so doing atoned for one minor error yesterday which cost them a victory when they misread the number of legs of the course. But Bribon were judged to be OCS and were disqualified, handing the race win to Kiki Sanchez and Santi Lopez's CAM. Bribon's protest against their disqualification was later denied.

Peter de Ridder and his Valle Romano Mean Machine scored what has become something of a 2007 trademark, a final race victory when they bolted from the pin end of the line and were first into the left side advantage.

The enthusiasm and dedication of Siemens Matador's owner Alberto Roemmers on board his new Judel Vrolijk-designed TP52 belies his 80+ years.

His first title victory in the Copa del Rey complements a string of international successes with his series of Alexia yachts including the Maxi World Championships, the Giraglia, Fastnet and Newport to Bermuda Races. It comes exactly one year after he gave the green light to skipper Guilermo Parada during last year's Copa del Rey, to start up the TP52 project in the Matador name - the line of boats owned and run by his son Alberto Jr.

Parada, along with his winning navigator Bruno Zirili and Mallorcan Pedro Perello, all won the Copa del Rey with Siemens here last year when their colours were attached to Eamon Conneely's winning boat Patches. And, as last year, Spain's Princess Elena sailed as guest with the winning Siemens team today and yesterday.

Parada dedicated this victory to the highly successful tactician Dee Smith, whose recent illness has prevented him taking up his place this season with the Siemens Matador team: "This is for Dee. He may not be able to be here, but we talk very often about this project and he is still always giving me ideas and tips. Even last night we spoke and he was telling me ideas. And for me and my brother this, August 4th, is a special day because our father died two years ago and he was certainly looking over us today.

"I have had a very good feeling about this regatta since before it started. But our crew have been fantastic and really deserve the win. 85% of them have been with us for 11 years. It has been a little tough for us to have consistency when we have had to change tacticians. Here my brother worked with Paul as strategist and in Portimao he will be tactician again.

"It was good. We sailed well inshore," said Cayard with a grin, referring to Siemens' 18th on Thursday's coastal race, "We need to get a little offshore training before we do another of those coastal races. Copa del Rey is fun because I won 20 years ago with Il Moro di Venezia. Here we won because first of all I think we have a fast boat - you can't win without a fast boat - but you have to manage the fleet, to stay in a good lane. Obviously you want to play the wind shifts but sometimes you have accept that you don't go for everything to the max in terms of the wind shifts, unless you are in first place. That is the same with every big fleet and at things like the Star Worlds you learn about being patient, staying in a lane. Once you get in traffic and start tacking a lot then you lose a lot.

"Today we actually had two bad starts," Cayard continued. "The second was a shocker - in fact to be honest we never really had a good start all week - but yesterday's first race also we had a horrible start also and we dug our way out of there and finished third and today we dug our way out and in the end were not racing too hard, we just wanted to get across the finish line. We were patient and we got some lanes. And I am sure we got our fair share of breaks and when it all goes your way it goes your way. It is great racing for sure and I would like to do a full programme. Winning isn't everything but it is more fun that coming second."

Cayard will race the next regatta with Doug de Vos' Windquest, added: "This fleet is tough and I have raced in the TP52 fleet in 2005, 2006 and this year now, and it is very competitive. I think I had a 3rd in 2005 with George Andreadis' Atalanti, but I like the Copa del Rey and I like the Rey (the King of Spain). He is a really good guy and he loves the sport of sailing, and it is not by accident that the sport of sailing is so popular in Spain. So it was brilliant week and sometimes it is your turn and this was our turn."

More photos on the next page...

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Nat	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	Tot
1	SIEMENS	Alberto Roemmers	Arg/Esp	3	1	2	3	5	7	18	3	5	3	5	55
2	MUTUA MADRILEÑA	Vasco Vascotto	ESP	1	2	1	8	10 RDG	6	1	8	12	6	6	61
3	CxG CORPORACIÓN CAIXAGALICIA	Vicente Tirado	ESP	2	13	9	4	6	3	8	6	7	2	13	73
4	PATCHES	Eamon Conneely	IRE	5	12	17	6	15	4	2	4	3	7	2	77
5	ARTEMIS	Torbjorn Torqnvist	SWE	11	9	5	1	1	10	13	2	9	11	7	79
6	BRIBON	Jose Cusi	ESP	9	3	10	5	4	2	9	11	2	23 OCS	4	82
7	STAY CALM	Stuart Robinson	GBR	7	6	6	7	3	12	6	1	1	25 DSQ	9	83
8	PLATOON	Harm Muller-Spreer	GER	4	4	3	18	9	5	3	9	14	5	14	88
9	VALLE ROMANO - MEAN MACHINE	Peter de Ridder	MON	6	11	4	19	7	13	12	7	6	12	1	98
10	BALEARIA	Adolfo Utor	ESP	8	17	11	15	2	1	4	12	17	10	12	109
11	BIGAMIST 6	Peedro Mendonca	POR	14	5	12	11	8	9	17	5	19	15	11	126
12	ANONIMO Q8	Riccardo Simoneschi	ITA	16	8	8	9	13	15	11	17	4	19	10	130
13	CRISTABELLA	John Cook	GBR	20	7	13	10	11	14	20	13	11	9	8	136
14	CAM, CAJA MEDITERRÁNEO	Fernando Leon	ESP	23 OCS	15	18	2	12	18	19	21	8	1	3	140
15	GLORY	John Buchan	USA	10	19	22	12	10	8	7	18	21	16	18	161
16	ONO	Inaki Castaner	ESP	13	20	7	13	16	16	21	22	10	8	21	167
17	RUSAL - Synergy	Alexey Nikolaev	RUS	23 OCS	22	21	21	20	11	5	14	16	4	16	173
18	C-QUADRAT - ASTRO	Rainer Wilhelm	AUS	15	16	14	22	17	17	16	10	13	20	17	177
19	TAU CERAMICA-ANDALUCIA	Javier Banderas, Rafael Diaz	ESP	18	18	16	14	18	19	10	15	18	13	19	178
20	AIFOS	Jaime Rodriguez-Toubes	ESP	19	10	15	17	22	22	14	16	15	14	20	184
21	VALARS	Serguei Shevtsov	RUS	12	14	19	20	21	21	22	19	23 DNF	17	15	203
22	FRAM XVI	King Harald of Norway	NOR	17	21	20	16	19	20	15	20	20	18	22	208