Miami fails to play ball

No racing today at the Oracle RC44 Cup

After yesterday’s wet and wild start to the Oracle RC 44 Cup Miami, the regatta ground to a virtual halt today with a lack of wind. After waiting all day for the wind to build, Principal Race Officer Peter Reggio was forced to abandon the day’s schedule at 1520 hours with insufficient breeze on the racecourse.

The loss of the semifinal round today sees the event advance to the match racing final tomorrow morning where Chris Bake’s Team Aqua, led by Cameron Appleton, will square off against Torbjorn Tornqvist’s Artemis Racing, with Terry Hutchinson as skipper. The two crews won Group A and B, respectively, with 5-1 records.

Additional racing will take place as follows:

3rd and 4th place: Synergy Russian Sailing Team vs. Mascalzone Latino

5th and 6th place: BMW ORACLE Racing vs. Team Sea Dubai

7th and 8th place: 17 vs. No Way Back

9th and 10th place: Katusha vs. Ceeref

11th and 12th place: Ironbound vs. Peninsula Petroleum

13th and 14th place: Puerto Calero Islas Canarias vs. AEZ RC 44 Sailing Team

Each match is a one race sudden death, winner take all. Event organizers have moved the start time forward by an hour to 1100 with the hopes of completing each match.

No racing will be conducted after 1300 as the afternoon is set aside for practice for the fleet racing portion of the regatta, Friday through Sunday.

Oracle RC 44 Cup Match Racing Provisional Standings

Group Alpha
1. Team Aqua (UAE) Chris Bake/Cameron Appleton – 5-1, 5 points
2. Synergy Russian Sailing Team (RUS) Maxim Logutenko/Evgeniy Neugodnikov – 3-2, 3 points
3. Team Sea Dubai (UAE) Harm Müller-Spreer/Markus Wieser – 5-1, 3 points*
4. No Way Back (NED) Pieter Heerema/Ray Davies – 4-2, 2 points*
5. Katusha (RUS) Guennadi Timtchenko/Paul Cayard – 2-4, 2 points
6. Peninsula Petroleum (ESP) John Bassadone/Inaki Castaner – 1-4, 1 point
7. Islas Canarias Puerto Calero (ESP) Daniel Calero/Jose Maria Ponce – 0-6, 0 points
(* penalty points applied)

Group Bravo
1. Artemis (SWE) Torbjorn Tornqvist/Terry Hutchinson – 5-1, 5 points
2. Mascalzone Latino (ITA) Vincenzo Onorato/Francesco Bruni – 4-1, 4 points
3. BMW ORACLE Racing (USA) Larry Ellison/Russell Coutts – 4-2, 4 points
4. 17 (USA) William Douglass/Jimmy Spithill – 4-2, 4 points
5. Ceeref (SLO) Igor Lah/Rod Davis – 2-4, 2 points
6. Ironbound (USA) David Murphy/Ian Williams – 1-4, 1 point
7. AEZ RC 44 Sailing Team (AUT) René Mangold/Christian Binder – 0-6, 0 points