06 May 2012
Grand Prix Les Ambassadeurs Geneva
Today was the final day
of a great weekend of racing on Lake Geneva.
We sailed four great races to go with the previous ten, for a total of
14 races. The winds today were again in the 10-12 knot range with
gusts to 16 at times.
Artemis Racing had a pretty good day with scores of 5,2,5,6 and held
our third place overall. We were pretty pleased with that result
considering we did very little training as a complete crew prior to the
regatta.
Alinghi and Realstone ('the kids') tied for first place overall, but
Alinghi won the tie breaker due to having more first place finishes.
Alinghi won the last two races of the weekend, while the kids finished
7, 3 and thus closed the gap and forced the tie. Realstone is known as
"the kids" as the crew are all about 23 years old or younger and they
train a lot. They trained for two months in the D35 prior to this
weekend and it showed. Very smooth on boat handling and they know the
lake pretty well.
We were just two points ahead of Lady Cat this morning so we were happy
to extend that gap to eight points by the end of the weekend.
The Southwesterly wind was shifty as always and in the last race there
were some very large "holes" of no wind. There was so much passing and
being passed that I can't possibly recount it all. Suffice to say that
it was never over until you crossed the finish line and often boats
made big comebacks after being last after the first lap.
I want to thank Yvan, Frank, Gilles, Sarah, Noel and Maxime for a great
job this weekend! 14 races is a lot and the wind was up so the crew
work load was high and everyone put in 110%. Catamarans are fast and
fun but also a lot of work. Sailing a D35 with six gives one a good
appreciation for the AC45 which is sailed with just 5 crew and the AC72
with its 40 meter wing which will be sailed with just 11.
The next event for the D35s is Le Grand Prix de Crans in three weeks
time. Before that, we have the AC45 World Series event in Venice in 10
days.
I am back to Valencia tonight to the Artemis Racing base of operations.
For complete D35 results go to www.vulcaintrophy.com
Paul
İChris Schmid/Eye Image
Follow Artemis Racing
W [1]www.artemisracing.com
F [2]www.facebook.com/pages/ArtemisRacing
T [3]www.twitter.com/artemisracing
Y [4]www.youtube.com/artemisteam
|
