Mututa Madrileña wins Breitling Regatta and secures top spot of Breitling MedCup

Second place was more than enough to clinch the Breitling Trophy for a delighted Peter de Ridder and the crew of Mean Machine-Mutua Madrilena today in Puerto Portals Mallorca.

The Dutch skipper, resident in Monaco, and his mainly Emirates Team New Zealand crew not only won the top award for this demanding eight race regatta which has run at an almost unrelenting pace, but now also head the overall standings on the season long Breitling MedCup standings.

As top Corinthian helm for the third successive regatta, but this time de Ridder kept the top America’s Cup skippers and Olympic medal winning helms like Russell Coutts, Dean Barker and Ian Walker behind him.

Mutua Madrileña, winner of the Breitling Regatta. Puerto Portals, 23 July 2006. Photo copyright: Jorge Andreu

And for the third Breitling MedCup regatta in a row, the final day was the trickiest. With a persistent easterly gradient breeze conflicting with the more southerly sea breeze, the net effect was unsettled, challenging wind which puffed up to 11 knots and fell as often to just 6 knots, changing direction by up to 30 degrees.

Three different boats have now won each different Breitling MedCup regatta.

Steve and Fred Howe’s Warpath, steered by Dean Barker, scored their a second back to back win since damage in race six forced their retirement. Even carrying the weighty ballast of a 22nd for their retirement, Warpath still finished second overall, while the Russell Coutts steered Lexus of Jaime Yllera and George Andreadis finished third, marking their first podium finish of the season so far.

“It is very nice to be the amateur driver winning here, up against the big guys. I think that is important for the other owner-drivers to see that if your boat is in order and you have good team around then, you as the driver, are just one of the fifteen guys and if you do your job normally you can hang in there and be competitive. For me it definitely helps doing a lot of Farr 40 sailing because that is a very competitive fleet doing many competitive mark roundings and mixed starts,” commented de Ridder.

Warpath, ranked second in the Breitling Regatta. Puerto Portals, 23 July 2006. Photo copyright: Jorge Andreu

With just a week of recuperation – or returning to the ‘day jobs’ in the case of the America’s Cup sailors who form the backbone of many crews – before the next event, Palma’s Copa del Rey regatta on the same waters, De Ridder comments:

“That will be another big challenge. And I am sure there will be another difficult day like today where the gradient breeze is fighting the sea breeze and there are a lot of holes in the wind but we will start that regatta fresh minded. But we are confident we have speed, our sail trimmers are good and work hard. I think our team is very good and is a good example of 1 plus 1 making much more than two.”

“We started well with two seconds and a first, but the team has sailed extremely well all week under a lot of pressure. We had a couple of good helmsmen right behind us in Dean Barker and Russell Coutts, so Peter sailed extremely well and the whole crew did. It was an extremely difficult day and it would have been to get stressed out, but we managed to keep calm through the whole race.” Explained Ray Davies, Mutua Madrilena’s tactician. “The difference this time is that we have been more consistent. We always knew we had potential. We just tried to sail a little more conservatively this regatta