Conditions on the British Virgin Islands’ St Francis Drake Channel further improved today; still shifty, thanks to the islands to weather and the tropical clouds overhead, but with more wind – ranging from 9-13 knots. The race course was moved so that the start area was directly off Tortola’s capital Road Town. Racing also started an hour earlier, at 1100, to make best of the available breeze. 

After a lacklustre start to her regatta, the 2024 44Cup leader, Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika, countered strongly today elevating her from an uncharacteristic seventh place at the end of play yesterday to fourth at this half-way stage of the 44Cup Nanny Cay. Team Nika posted a solid 2-2-2 scoreline today, making her – in contrast to yesterday - by far the top-scoring boat.

“We didn’t do anything special - with these conditions, a lot of things depend on luck,” commented Prosikhin. “We struggled with two starts - the starts were quite difficult, but we did a good job and after that we were free so Nic [Asher – tactician] could choose the right sides and the shifts. It was still very shifty and puffy, but somehow we held on and it was good.”

As to the fabulous Caribbean venue in which the 2024 44Cup is concluding, Prosikhin added: “I was expected it to be J2 conditions [ie stronger trade winds], but the landscape, the water at 29°C, the Caribbean…it is fantastic.”

Tactician Nic Asher agreed they hadn’t done much different compared to yesterday, despite achieving very much better results. “Hopefully we got the worst out of the way - we had one bad start and we didn’t do a good job really catching up,” he mused over their performance yesterday. Of today he added: “In the second race we had a massively rightly off the start line – in fact it was a bit whacky that race, but solid enough. In the last one we had a funny start with Ceeref in the middle of the line. We tried to come up and they tried to come up with us, so we were both then late for the start. We tried to push them back a little bit and get free and we did a nice job of carving our way back through.

“Today ‘freedom to take the shifts’ was key - that was the biggest different. The shifts were fairly big – you’d think you understood them and their oscillation, but then it’d do something quite whacky.”

Today, there were two new winners. In the first race Christian Zuerrer’s Black Star Sailing Team prevailed. Tactician Cameron Dunn explained: “There was a hole at the committee boat - we went right a little way, but then we hooked into a big rightie and crossed everybody and just carried that all the way to the left layline where we had better pressure than the rest of the fleet and got back across with a little lead. It wasn’t straightforward after that because we had a big split on the second beat - us and Nika went hard left and Artemis and the rest of the fleet went hard right, but we came back the same. Today the shifts were up to 30° - it was very dynamic.”

The second race saw John Bassadone steer his light blue-hulled Peninsula Racing to victory. Like Team Aqua, Peninsula Racing was a brand new RC44 this year and the team, led by tactician Vasco Vascotto, is slowly working her up. “There are a few things that are not quite working as they should, but that is just part and parcel of it being a new boat. We are getting there,” commented Bassadone. 

In the race Peninsula Racing won, Team Nika had a solid lead coming into the top mark which she held to the leeward gate however Bassadone’s team enjoyed a nice lift that allowed them to cross Team Nika coming into the top mark. There was some close match racing on the last run and despite at one point Vascotto sticking to his guns, allowed Team Nika to separate but Prosikhin’s team was unable gain any leverage from this and Peninsula Racing crossed the line to score her first bullet of the regatta. 

In fact Bassadone was almost more satisfied with today’s first race in which they finished sixth: “We were dead last at the first mark. It shows that there are some shifts out there where you can make a difference. Nothing is over!” 

Once again the Pietro Loro Piana-steered Aleph Racing of Hugues Lepic won the last race (as she did yesterday). This she managed pretty much out of the blocks, heading out to the left after the start and defending well thereafter.

However the most impressive performance so far has been the ever consistent Artemis Racing. So far Torbjörn Törnqvist’s team has not won a race here, but neither have they scored worse than a fourth – superb consistency shown by ace tactician Hamish Pepper, main sheet trimmer Iain Percy and the team. 

However as Cameron Dunn points out: “There are still six tricky races to go!”

Racing will once again start at 1100 Atlantic Standard Time (UTC -4).