The Challenge and Adventure Team was out on the water aboard Privateer for the Volvo In Port Races in Boston on Saturday.
The day belonged to Telefonica Blue. They were already the most successful inshore team, claiming two wins, one second and a third from the four in-port sessions before today. This afternoon, in the light breezes their boat loves most, they led from start to finish in both races with more than a minute to spare at the end of each one.
“Good day, we did really well,” said Iker Martinez, their inshore skipper. “We are very happy. It might have looked easy but it was not easy at all.”
Bouwe Bekking, the team’s offshore skipper and inshore tactician, was in the mood for understatements. “It could have been worse,” he said. “We like this weather, but we still had to pull it off and we did. We made it a bit hard for ourselves on the second beat in the second race, when we had an easy lay and the chute came off. We had to tack back and reach into the gate mark. But we did well in difficult conditions.”
Indeed, the wind shifted by as much as 40 degrees during the racing, while its speed danced anywhere between five and 12 knots. A thick fog swept the course in the second race for dramatic effect. “Not easy conditions,” said Ericsson 4 skipper Torben Grael, a man who was also far from unhappy.
His team took third in the first race and second in the latter, a spectacular outcome given they crossed the start line early and had to return and cross again alongside Ericsson 3 and PUMA. It earned them second place for the day.
“Blue had a good day and we didn’t have a good start in the second so the result was good,” Grael said. “We were a bit unlucky in the first race. We had a very good start (before going left). Yesterday in the practice the left was nice so everyone wanted to go left, but it didn’t pay. The race is so short it is difficult to come back. The second race was the opposite. We are happy.”
The result means Blue reduce their overall deficit by half a point to 12-and-a-half points. “If it shrinks by just half a point in all the remaining legs I will be pretty happy,” Grael added.
Bekking remained bullish. “We beat them and that is all we can hope for,” he said. “We can keep trying and if we keep winning I’m happy. We just need teams to get in between us and them.”
For a time that team seemed likely to be Delta Lloyd, the born again heroes of this event.
For the second straight in-port event, Roberto Bermudez’s team bagged the final step of the podium. It could have been even better – they were second in the first race and held third midway through the second before falling to sixth – but their third-placed finish overall put a smile on Bermudez’s face.
Boston In Port Race Images by George Bekris
(click on photo to enlarge)
“It’s good,” he said. “We sailed well. We sailed magnificently in the first but the second was worse. We made a few bad manoeuvres and a few bad calls. But this is a good position. We need to continue.”
His navigator Wouter Verbraak was a bit more effusive. “It’s amazing, someone is looking over us,” he said. “We practiced and practiced and it paid off. Big boats are all about communication and we knew we had to improve that. It’s all to do with attitude and we are getting better all the time.”
There were further smiles on Ericsson 3. They have been a revelation offshore – tying for second in finishes and holding the spot outright at scoring gates – but inshore they had been the worst of the seven active teams, taking two sixth-placed finishes, one seventh and one “did not start”. Initially today did not look much better. They were sixth in the first race, partly the consequence of a Green Dragon foul that left them sat motionless for two minutes. And they crossed the line early in the second. However, in the latter they battled back superbly in the bigger breeze and took third.
Skipper Magnus Olsson was in typically expressive mood with the final allocation of fourth place. “It’s a big step forward for us,” he laughed. “From now on we will always be on the podium in the in-port races! In the first race we were so bad I fired everybody, but because I couldn’t find any new ones I had to hire everyone back so they can stay.”
Watch leader Richard Mason added: “A step in the right direction; got a monkey off our back a little bit in the second race result. We were miles over at the start which was a little disappointing in the second, but we hung in there and did well. We have some more steps to make, but it was a good step.”
Black were fifth after a fifth and a fourth, but skipper Fernando Echavarri was hardly overjoyed. “Not really happy,” he said. His team were second going into the final run, but they became entangled in a lobster pot line early in the race and he lamented the cost. “The second race at the beginning of the first upwind we hit a buoy with our keel and it slowed the boat.”
Ken Read was the most glum. The PUMA skipper had been on the podium in all four in-port races, but today could manage no better than a fourth and a fifth, which owing to other teams’ performances left them sixth. He crossed the start line early in the second race, capping for him a bad day in the light conditions his boat dislikes.
“Just a disappointing day,” he said. “If we were to write a script for a condition where our boat performs in front of a home crowd, this would have been last on the list. But we were a point out of third, that’s how close everyone was. But you make a mistake on the starting line like I did on the second race, you don’t deserve to be on the podium. You can’t make a mistake like that in this fleet.”
The result, helped in no small part by Delta Lloyd’s jump up the pecking order, has left them fall a further two-and-a-half points to three behind Blue.
Green Dragon skipper Ian Walker was seventh in both races and understandably disappointed.
“We could have done better,” he said, before recalling the incident at the first rounding of the opening that forced his team to do a penalty turn.