Malta laid on suitably brisk conditions for the opening day of fleet racing at the RC44 Valletta Cup.
Wind gusting above 20 knots plus a choppy sea tested crews and owner-drivers alike on the 10 competing one designs, this year celebrating their 10th anniversary.
With the southeasterly wind blowing along the coast off the Maltese capital of Valletta, crews quickly found that the right side of the course was paying, resulting in some of the tightest top mark roundings of the season.
In the first race, it was the crew on Alexander Novoselov’s Katusha that were among the first to recognise the ‘power of the right side’, edging ahead of Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika to take the lead up the first beat.
The Russian RC44 with her characteristic red spinnaker then tore away down the first run and was not to be caught from then on.
Race two saw a bunching of boats at the committee boat end and once again it was Katusha that got her bow in front of, on this occasion, John Bassadone’s Peninsula Petroleum coming into the top mark.
Katusha, on which American Andy Horton calls tactics, again showed the way around the race track but with Artemis Racing Youth, steered by Gustaf Lidvall and with British Olympic Laser gold medallist Paul Goodison as tactician, punching above their weight to clinch second on the final race, ahead of their team-mates, Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing.
For the opening day’s third and final race, the wind and sea state dropped fractionally.
In this, it was Team Nika, Artemis Racing and Igor Lah’s Team CEEREF that were jockeying for the lead coming into the top mark with Lah’s Slovenian team getting her bow in front. The front-runners continued to play the right side of the course for the remainder of the race with Team CEEREF, at present the overall RC44 Fleet Racing Championship leader and custodian of the RC44’s prestigious ‘golden wheels’, hanging on to first place ahead of Artemis Racing and Team Nika.
Katusha scored a ninth place finish in the final race, dropping her to second overall behind Artemis Racing, the RC44 Match Racing Championship winner on Wednesday.
Fleet racing at the RC44 Valletta Cup continues today in similar 15-20 knot conditions to yesterday but with the wind forecast to veer into the south.