RC44 Portorož Cup 2018 – Report – Day 1

Tentative early lead for local favourites Team CEEREF

With the added incentive of being both the local Slovenian team and holder of the 2016 and 2017 RC44 season championship titles, it came as little surprise that Igor Lah’s Team CEEREF came out on top after day one of the RC44 Portorož Cup.
The morning started with an unpromising forecast and the flags barely flickering in Marina Portorož. However after a delay of just 30 minutes, a west northwesterly wind filled in ultimately enabling PRO Peter Reggio to buck the odds and successfully complete three races on Piran Bay.
Despite Hugues Lepic’s Aleph Racing leading at the top mark in the first two races, it was Lah’s crew that lay down an early marker to win race one, while in race two it was the turn of Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika. This latter result made up for a last place finish in race one when they had suffered a problem with a badly knotted spinnaker sheet.
With the wind peaking at around eight knots, conditions finally started to go flukey in the third and final race of the day. In this Chris Bake’s Team Aqua led from start to finish.
Generally it was a high scoring day across the fleet with both Teams Nika and Aqua scoring first and last placed finishes and only Team CEEREF managed anything close to consistently good results.
Similarly light conditions are forecast for tomorrow when racing is due to resume at 1200 CET.

Source: Sailing Media Ltd
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