No day for new boats

As 2007 MedCup winner, now Tau Ceramica-Andalucia takes first two races in Alicante

As was the case at the first regatta of the 2007 MedCup, day one at the TP52's Trofeo Ciudad de Alicante was one to make owners of the latest hardware to 'have words' with their boat captains. For today there was no question which boat was the dominant force - Artemis, sadly the 2007 MedCup winning Judel-Vrolijk design, now sold to Javier Banderas (Antonio's brother) and Rafeal Diaz and called Tau Ceramica Andalucia, rather than Torbjorn Tornqvist's brand new Cookson-built Reichel-Pugh designed Artemis. Impressively Tau won both races today, leading the second from start to finish.

To make matters worse, while several of the boats such as Artemis and Mean Machine have amateur helmsmen ably assisted by some of the top professionals in our business, on Tau, aside from the familiar form of tactician (past double Soling World Champion, 470 World Champion and four times Olympian) Manuel Doreste, the crew was primarily amateur.

“We never ever believed we would have a day like this," commented Doreste. "We only sailed the boat for four days so it is great for a crew with amateurs like our sail trimmers. We did not really know the boat but we were sailing very well both races. All the sails we have are the existing sails from last year and we only had money to buy two new jibs. But we made good starts and were always looking for the wind on the right hand side of the course and got it. We were lucky, certainly, but we sailed well. Today was very close racing but we kept our nerves and did our jobs well. Tomorrow? Well we will see about that.”

For a crew which have only two full-time paid professionals on board and a budget which committed mainly to buying the 2007 MedCup champion boat, to which they only added two new sails and practised only three days prior to coming to Alicante, today was a fairytale start to the season for Jose Maria Torcida and the Tau crew. It was the best ever day on the MedCup Circuit for the team which had never won a race in their first two years on the MedCup Circuit. Their previous best was a solitary second in Ibiza in 2006.

Racing got under way after a 40 minutes postponement waiting for the sea breeze to settle. Through the day it blew no more than nine knots and by late afternoon had faded at times to just four knots making for a gentle, but mentally challenging start to the 2008 Audi MedCup Circuit.

Tau Andalucia Ceramica, steered by 2007 J/80 World Champion Jose Maria Torcida, made good starts to both races and was second round the first turn in the first race and lead the second race from start to finish. Winning both races leaves the Andalucian boat four points clear of Vasco Vascotto's new Mutua Madrilena on equal points after day one with Jose Cusi’s Bribon, being steered this year by Dean Barker.

So what the hell is going on? Are the new boats slower? The general concensus of the rather large number of people offering up excuses along the dock in Alicante is that the majority of the new designs are built with added stability for used in stronger winds (ie more than 14 knots) so it seems likely that the moment there is some puff and we see the boats powering up the new hardware will start to shine. With venues such as Marseille and Cagliari in the Audi MedCup circuit this year the average wind speed is thought to be closer to 14 knots rather than 10.

There is also the view that since the season is starting early (or earlier than it was last year) some of the new hardware isn't ready. Certainly all of the new campaigns have been working round the clock, screwing bits to boats these last few days. But while admittedly there may have been a fair amount of late commissioning of the new hardware, May is hardly an early start to the season, particularly in the Med.

On the race course yesterday were 16 of the supposed 19 boats due to be competing this year. Not competing at this regatta is the BMW Oracle Racing boat - USA 17 - to be helmed by Larry Ellison with Russell Coutts whispering in his ear. Expect great things of this campaign. Meanwhile the familiar Portugese entry Bigamist of Pedro Mendonca and the Spanish navy entry, Aifos, have chosen to sit this regatta out.

Among the mix are seven new boats - one Reichel Pugh ( Artemis), one Botin & Carkeek ( Quantum) and the rest Judel-Vrolijks ( Mean Machine, El Desafio, Audi TP52 Powered by Q8, Platoon, Mutua Madrilena)

Of the these Mutua Madrileña posted the best results of the day. After winning the first MedCup season in 2005, Vasco Vascotto's team return for their fourth consecutive year but it has been an uphill struggle. The team lost three crucial training days prior to this regatta after they damaged their masthead crane, only re-launching their Italian-crewed, Chilean-flagged and Spanish-backed TP52 late on Monday evening. Despite missing Monday’s practice race Vascotto, the wily former Mascalzone Latino skipper and his crew rose from such adversity and led the first race from the start gun. It was only within 60 metres of the finish line that they let Tau Ceramica Andalucia slide through to take the first gun. Mutua Madrileña sailed to a well-earned fourth in the second race to lie second overall.

“It was a fantastic day," commented Vascotto. "After what happened to us we just had to go out with clear heads and pray we could do a good job. All of the team who got us back on the water did a great job and we were all very tired when we started, but that may be not such as a bad thing because we just did not think about the past and just focussed on the races. Now we have to just not get too excited, there are so many good sailors out there that it is so easy to get a bad result.”

Another surprise performance from an older boat today was that of John Cook's Cristabella which flew around the course to take second in race two today. Calling tactics on board was the familiar shiney top of American Dee Smith. Smith was missed through last season as he fought a debilitating illness, but he was back to his punchy best today.

"It feels great to get back into it," Smith commented. "We learned a lot today and sailed well. It was great in the second race although the first was more difficult. It really is all about a little bit of everything: driving, trimming, manoeuvres, tactics; if you don’t have the full package in this game you are just not going to be there. We didn’t have it in the first race, but we had enough of it in the second to get back into the race after being pretty deep off the line. We got some good lanes, worked them and found some new speed which was good. I think the boat is situated better than the new boats for the light airs so hopefully we can use that this week."

City of Alicante Trophy/Audi MedCup Circuit
Standings after two races (Position, Boat, Country, R1, R2, Total Points)
1st TAU Ceramica Andalucia ESP (1,1. 2pts)
2nd Mutua Madrileña ESP (2,4 6pts)
3rd Bribón ESP (3,3 6pts)
4th Quantum USA (4,5 9pts)
5th Cristabella GBR (11, 2 13pts)
6th Platoon powered by Team Germany GER (5,9 14pts)
7th CAM – Caja Del Mediterraneo ESP (6,8 14pts)
8th El Desafio ESP (9, 6 15pts)
9th ONO ESP (8, 12 20pts)
10th CxG Corporacion Caixa Galicia ESP (15, 7 22pts)
11th Mean Machine MON (7, 16 23pts)
12th Audi TP52 Powered by Q8 ITA (13, 10 23pts)
13th Artemis SWE (12, 11 23pts)
14th Matador ARG (10, 14 24pts)
15th Rusal-Synergy (14, 13 27pts)
16th Valars (16, 15 31 pts)