The final day of the RC44 Valletta Cup brought plenty of sun but the wind never filled in enough to allow yesterday’s races to be sailed, despite the 10-boat fleet venturing out on to the water.
Thus, the final event of the year and the resulting RC44 Fleet Racing Championship have once again concluded with very close results as Saturday’s positions were taken into consideration for the final standings.
Chris Bake’s Team Aqua were declared winners of the RC44 Valletta Cup by a mere point from Igor Lah’s Team CEEREF.
However, with a two-point advantage going into the final event, Team CEEREF claimed the overall RC44 Fleet Racing Championship title for 2016, a point better off than Team Aqua.
Being the longest-standing teams in the RC44 class, many reckoned it was appropriate that Team Aqua and Team CEEREF should dominate the fleet racing in this 10th anniversary season for the Russell Coutts-inspired one designs.
As Team Nika did in 2015, this year Team CEEREF scored the coveted ‘double’ – victory in the overall season as well as the World Championship.
In fact, this year’s World Championship results proved critical to the outcome of the season for the two teams. In calculating the RC44 Fleet Racing Championship final results, each team is permitted one discard, but this excludes the World Championship, which must count.
While Team CEEREF’s could discard its worse result – a sixth place in Portsmouth, Team Aqua were unable to shed their sixth place at the World Championship which were held in Sotogrande, Spain. Had this been possible, they would have finished the 2016 Championship one point ahead of their Slovenian rivals.
In his first full season in the class, Alexander Novoselov’s Katusha finished a creditable third in the RC44 Valletta Cup, but this still left the Russian team three points away from the final step of the podium in the 2016 championship.
This was taken by Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing, winner of the RC44 Cascais Cup in September. Last Wednesday, the Swedish team also claimed the 2016 RC44 Match Racing Championship title at Grand Harbour.
Once again, emphasising the high level of competition in the RC44 class, Team Aqua were the only team to win two events this season.
Just four points separated the fourth to seventh-placed boats at the final season’s tally, demonstrating how close the racing was even in the mid-fleet and how vital it was to achieve a good result in Malta.
The RC44s return in 2017 with the RC44 Sotogrande Cup from April 27-30.