Bullitt on target at the RORC Nelson’s Cup Maxi Series

The Caribbean is living up to its reputation this week for providing the winning formula of breezy sailing conditions, waves and blazing sunshine in the inaugural RORC Nelson’s Cup Maxi Series that started yesterday (Tuesday 18 February). With racing organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in conjunction with Antigua Yacht Club, competitors have been sailing essentially windward-leeward, coastal courses, including some short reaching legs, off the Antigua’s south coast, starting and finishing off the dramatic ‘Pillars of Hercules’ at the entrance to English Harbour. 

Over the last two days competitors have been relishing the regular 20 knot easterly trade winds that blow along the coast here and the lively accompanying sea state. 

Leading after yesterday’s two races, after they scored a 2-1, was Andrea Recordati’s Wally 93 Bullitt. Today the Italian team consolidated its position at the top of the leaderboard when they scored a 2-3. 

So far, impressively, in four races there have been four different winners with Karel Komárek's 100ft V winning the opening race yesterday before she was forced to retire from the second to deal with some technical issues, allowing Bullitt to win the second. Holding second place after day one was Wendy Schmidt’s 85ft Deep Blue after she posted a 3-2. However today positions more mid-fleet have dropped her team to fourth, albeit within one point of second. 

With further supreme conditions out on the race track, today’s two winners were Chris Flowers’ Galateia in the first race and Filip Balcaen’s Maxi 72 Balthasar in the second. This has caused Galateia to jump up the leaderboard to second overall with Balthasar a point behind in third. Thus at present the leaderboard comprises a diverse group: a 93 footer, 100 footer and 72. 

 

Galateia tactician, Kiwi America’s Cup legend Murray Jones, may have won the ‘Auld Mug’ a record six times, but this is very first time racing in Antigua. “It's great - it's really nice to be sailing somewhere with breeze every day. We spend so much time in the Mediterranean waiting for wind and sailing in light air or having far too much and waiting on shore. So it is great coming out here and sailing in, so far, manageable conditions. We've had up to about 23 knots or so, which is okay on these boats - if it were 26+ it would be not fun at all…”

In today’s first race, V again had issues but recovered admirably in race two, in which she finished second. “V was doing well until they trawled their spinnaker, so that helped us,” continued Jones. V rates just three points ahead of Galateia under IRC and so, as Jones observes, “it doesn't take much for them to beat us in the water: we're very close to them, but they are going well, for sure.”

Racing the 100s here is providing a real work-out for the Galateia crew. “The boys are getting the sails up and down even though it's a real hand-full sailing these big boats in these conditions with the waves. It's demanding, but the guys did a good job.”

In the flatter waters in the Mediterranean often it is the 72s that come out on top in fleets of mixed-sized maxis. But in the bigger conditions off Antigua it has taken four races for the 72ft Balthasar to score her first bullet. 

“The bigger maxis go well in these big waves,” observed Balthasar strategist and veteran round the world sailor Bouwe Bekking (Australian 470 gold medallist Will Ryan is calling tactics on board this week). Of their victory in today’s second race, Bekking added: “We had a very good start at the offshore/boat end and we went all the way to the shore.” The start line off the Pillars of Hercules has land off to port so those that start at that end of the line are obliged to tack soon after. “Then on the last run, we had maybe a little bit more breeze in them and a different shift, whereas they had a better shift in the beginning.”

He concludes: “I think the important thing is just the rest of the fleet can see they can actually beat the 72s when the waves are big.

Two more races will be held tomorrow, the final day of the RORC Nelson’s Cup Maxi Series, when the maxis alone will be out on the race course (ie without IRC Class One and IRC Class Two). 

Most of the maxi fleet then continues racing with Friday’s Antigua 360 race around Antigua and then with the RORC Caribbean 600 which sets sail on Monday, 24th February.