AUDI Medcup - Cartagena Trophy - Day 3: Preview

Good morning from sunny (at least for now) Cartagena. We are now in the third day of the Medcup's closing event and hopefully we might get some races going on after two days of waiting for the breeze in vain. Our previews are getting repetitive so again, the focus will be the fierce battle in the GP42 class for overall leadership and in the TP52 fleet, the fight for 2nd and 3rd overall between Matador, Artemis, Quantum Racing and Bigamist.

Nevertheless, it seems the third one will be the good one. The forecast is definitely better and the breeze will probably be stronger, reaching 15 knots in the afternoon, with gusts up to 20. The race committee will try to hold 3 races so the crews might be sailing until it gets dark.

After being postponed to Friday, the coastal race has been finally cancelled and the race committee will now try to hold as many as three windward-leeward races per day.

A few races away from being crowned champions of the Med. Cartagena, 17 September 2009. Photo copyright Pierre Orphanidis / Valencia Sailing

Morning quotes

Vasco Vascotto, helmsman on Artemis: I think it's very difficult to find a race committee better then the one we have in the Medcup. At some stage, everybody will do something questionable and I'm sure the starts I had yesterday were more questionable than the committee's decisions. They are doing a great job and honestly I trust them. Maybe the first race shouldn't have been stopped but I think we are looking for someone to blame. Their decisions are difficult but smart. They are doing a great job and together with Peter Reggio they are the committees I would like to have in every race.

Obviously, we are all professionals, we get paid to race and we are anxious to race but we still haven't found a preferential way to communicate with the One above that takes the decisions and as a result all we can do is wait. So, we accept the committee's decision and in fact had the races gone through it would have probably been tough to justify them if they didn't turn out successful. Last but not least, if you don't take any decisions you'll never get wrong.

I had a heart attack when I was told a few minutes ago we would have similar conditions today but what can we do? When the breeze comes we will fight hard.

Ray Davies, tactician on Emirates Team New Zealand: I would like to think that we will finally race today. We have a very positive forecast today, much better than yesterday, with a definite gradient breeze pushing in the afternoon. Still, we shouldn't expect nothing much before 2pm and then it should build up to a solid 15 knots, or even more, with gusts of up to 20 knots by the end of the day. We will probably stay out until nearly dark and by that stage we will definitely have good breeze, 20 knots by 7-8pm.