After an average day on Friday at the 44Cup Nanny Cay, which left them fifth overall, the 2024 44Cup champions, Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika, recovered their mojo today on St Francis Drake Channel. The easterly trade winds remained brisk but slightly lighter and by the third and final race were averaging sub-20s. For the first two races laid on by PRO Maria Torrijo and the Royal BVI Yacht Club’s race team, the wind direction was also some further 20-30° right than yesterday making for the occasional longer sea state. Nonetheless, like yesterday, there were several impressive broaches, including Peninsula Racing, while crossing the finish line of race two, and Chris Bake’s Team Aqua approaching the end of today’s final race.
In today’s first two races Prosikhin’s black RC44, fitted with the defending champion’s/season leader’s golden wheels, got off to a good start and, unusually for this fleet, had pulled out a solid lead by the top mark. From there she went on to win ahead of the overall leader Hugues Lepic’s Aleph Racing and Nico Poons’ Charisma in the first race and Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing and Charisma in the second. Going into the day’s final race, just one point separated Aleph Racing from Charisma and Team Nika.
“It was very good indeed – the trimmers are very good and when I’m focused we can go fast,” admitted Prosikhin. “We had good starts and made virtually no mistakes. And the boat is in perfect shape, the crew is great.”
His tactician Nic Asher added: “We had two good starts and just controlled the fleet from there. We’ve got good pace upwind and if you get around the windward mark and pop the chute, you’ve all of a sudden got quite a big gap…”
Sadly Team Nika’s luck was not to last. For today’s third race the wind was backing left and as Asher put it: “there was a bit of a left bend and we were on the outside of that…” They reached the top mark mid-fleet, rounding outside of John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing and a small encouraging luff to keep them out of the way courtesy of the Gibraltar team’s tactician Vasco Vascotto was enough to send Team Nika into a costly broach. But as Prosikhin said, they are improving: “Once we would have had two penalties for that; then one penalty and a broach. Now we just broach! Then we missed the layline on the first downwind and that was it – we couldn’t recover. It’s not an easy regatta for us, but it’s alright – it’s very enjoyable to race in these conditions even if you don’t win. But if you win… it’s even better!”
At last, after a strong start yesterday, Igor Lah’s Team Ceeref Vaider finally scored a bullet in today’s third race.
“We had a good start and good upwind speed,” commented the team’s floater, Slovenian four time 470 Olympic sailor Tina Mrak. With the teams now having got their eye in, the first upwind was incredibly tight. Ceeref just managed to nose in front of the group heading back from the left and after a few short tacks approaching the top mark, pulled onto the starboard layline, with the inside berth, just bow forward on Artemis Racing. Mrak continued: “We were more or less first into the right shift. Then it was very easy once you’re in front.”
Attempting to play the shifts up the second beat, Nico Poons’ Charisma and Artemis Racing appeared to have a piece of Ceeref, but the Slovenian team managed to cover in time and led around the top mark, ahead of Charisma and Artemis Racing, and on to the finish. “It was a very nice win – we’re happy and we’ll try to continue tomorrow in the same level as we finished today,” continued Mrak. “The waves were a bit different today because it was a bit more from the right but the wind was still very strong and it was hard work on board for everyone.”
Going into the final day Aleph Racing and Charisma, effectively today’s winner with a 3-3-2, are tied at the top of the leaderboard, six points ahead of Team Nika.
Mathematically it was still possible, if unlikely, for John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing to recover from 8th place to win the 44Cup Nanny Cay overall, with three more races scheduled tomorrow. “It’s always great to be in the BVI – it’s a beautiful place but it’s tough sailing: they’re brilliant conditions, right on the limit,” commented Bassadone. “But that’s what these boats area designed to do – race well in little breeze or a lot of breeze. We are struggling definitely to find speed upwind…”
Bassadone is excited by the 44Cup fleet regrowing to 12 boats over the course of this season. “We’ve been working hard for many years to try and get some more boats. Chris [Bake], Torbjörn [Törnqvist] and I put the cart in front of the horse and went ahead and ordered new boats, hoping that our boats would turn into new teams, and it seems that’s worked.”
Three more races are scheduled for Sunday with a first warning signal at 1100, in conditions forecast to be marginally lighter than today. FOLLOW the live tracking here https://tractrac.com/event-page/event_20250208_CupNannyCa/3099
44CUP NANNY CAY RESULTS:
(After six races)
1. 🇫🇷 Aleph Racing – 5 1 1 2 4 3 – 16
2. 🇲🇨 Charisma – 1 3 4 3 3 2 – 16
3. 🇲🇨 Team Nika – 4 6 2 1 1 8 – 22
4. 🇸🇮 Team CEEREF Vaider – 3 2 5 5 7 1 – 23
5. 🇬🇧 Team Aqua – 2 7 3 6 6 7 – 31
6. 🇸🇪 Artemis Racing – 6 9 7 4 2 5 -33
7. 🇸🇪 GeMera – 8 4 8 10DNS 5 4 – 39
8. 🇬🇧 Peninsula Racing – 7 5 6 7 8 6 – 39
9. 🇪🇸 Calero Sailing Team – 9 8 9 8 9 10DNF – 53
Photo Credit: Nico Martinez
@44Cup
#the44cup
Interested in seeing more Racing News?
