New Zealand Mini Maxi Alfa Romeo and her Australian-based Kiwi skipper, Neville Crichton, have maintained their perfect score on the second day (4 August 2009) of the Copa del Ray Regatta in Spain, adding another two race wins to her score and putting Alfa Romeo ten points ahead of her nearest rival.
“Alfa Romeo is continuing to perform exactly as we had hoped,” said Neville Crichton at the end of the second day in the five day event. “With such a new yacht, we are still learning how she performs and I'm in no doubt that we still have a great deal more performance to extract from her.”
The second day's light conditions favoured the big boats of the IRC group enabling Alfa Romeo to remain undefeated after comfortably winning both races, by an even larger margin than day one.
The Reichel Pugh 70 footer won the first race after choosing the left-hand side of the area on the first beat, and repeated tactics, and victory, in the second race. Neville Crichton's Mini Maxi seems to be working perfectly, despite being only recently out of the shipyard where it was rebuilt. The crew includes British skipper and three times gold and silver Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie, who makes his debut in this important regatta in the Mediterranean.
