Just one flight sailed

A cold front stalls over the Canary Islands hampering the RC44 Worlds match racing

When competitors yesterday said the winds were going to be light and shifty for the econd day of the RC 44 World Championship Islas Canarias Puerto Calero Cup, they probably had no idea just how light it would be.

Today’s schedule for the round robin was thrown into disorder by a cold front that stalled out over Lanzarote. The fleet first took to the water at about 1200, but returned to shore after three and a half hours with just one completed flight.

That flight, however, set up the match racing finals with these pairings, the winner being the first to two points:

17 (Jimmy Spithill) vs. Artemis (Terry Hutchinson)
BMW Oracle Racing (Russell Coutts) vs. Katusha (Paul Cayard)
Team Aqua (Cameron Appleton) vs. No Way Back (Ray Davies)
Ceeref (Rod Davis) vs. Sea Dubai (Markus Wieser)
AEZ RC 44 Racing (Christian Binder) vs. Mascalzone Latino (Vincenzo Onorato)

One race was held in very streaky, shifty conditions and the winners were 17, BMW Oracle Racing, Team Aqua, Ceeref and AEZ RC 44 Racing.

“The wind was very patchy and unsettled, you couldn’t forecast what was going to happen next," said Cameron Appleton of Team Aqua. “But you have to keep winning races and we won the ones we had to."

The match racing is scheduled to conclude tomorrow morning, with the first warning signal scheduled for 1000 local.

The weather forecast, however, is calling for more light winds. There may be some weak north/northeast trade winds in the morning, but they are expected to die away and veer to the east/southeast and be very light in the afternoon.