Three separate teams each took race wins on the first day of fleet racing at the RC44 Trapani Cup in Sicily. But the team at the top of the overnight leader-board didn’t win a race, instead it was consistency across all four races that was the key to Team CEEREF from Slovenia success on day one.

Racing started in a moderate north easterly sea-breeze. Series leader Katusha (RUS) got off the blocks well leading at the top mark from Team CEEREF and Team Aqua, the top three held their positions until the final gun, round one to the Russian team, with Steve Howe at the helm.

Valentin Zavadnikov’s Synergy Russian Sailing Team like banging a corner or two in the RC44 fleet. In race two they were quick to tack off the start-line and head right into the Sicilian shoreline, a move that would prove very valuable as they led the fleet into the windward mark. Poland’s MAG Racing rounded in second with the home town heroes Team Italia in third, again the top three positions didn’t change to the finish, Team CEEREF moving up to fifth by the finish, with Katusha two places behind in seventh.

Synergy may have been spurred on by having a double Olympic Champion and CNN Mainsail presenter Shirley Robertson as their ninth man in race two, but their form carried onto the next race. With the fleet favouring the committee boat end, 12 RC44s were crammed into one very small space. Synergy however bucked the trend and started in space at the pin end with no other boat even close to them. The Russian’s led from start to finish for their second win of the day. Katusha gained places throughout to finish second, and Team CEEREF continued their consistent form slotting in a third.

Tactician, Ed Baird explained the tactics on-board Synergy for their two race wins. “The second race today just seemed like the left was getting lighter and the little pressure that was remaining on the race course was out to the right. It felt that way all day but in that start in particular I just wanted to be up there on the right hand side, be early to tack and stay on the shore which turned out to be more valuable than I expected. All three boats that started up at the committee boat end and tacked early were the three boats that lead at the top mark by quite a long way.

In the third race the fleet thought they had better head to the right but you could kind of see the breeze had filled in more and actually on the last run of the previous race we felt we were getting headers on starboard gybe downwind so when I saw the pin was a little favoured and all the boats were at the committee boat we separated, got down to the left and there was just a little bit more pressure of the line there and no one in our face so we could cross the fleet from there.”

In the final race of the day it was Chris Bake’s Team Aqua who picked the right end of the line, got a clean start and stayed ahead of the fleet. Team Aegir were their closest rival as they rounded the windward mark, but it was Team CEEREF who were again making the move through the fleet. Their second place in the final race left the Slovenian with a 2,5,3,2 score-line and a six-point overnight lead over Synergy; Team Aqua sit in third, two-points ahead of Katusha in fourth.

Team CEEREF’s owner Igor Lah (SLO) was pleased with their day on the water. “Everything was working in our favour today, Michele (Ivaldi) was choosing all the right sides, the team did a great job downwind, the wind was pretty stable, everything just worked. It’s amazing how hard the competition is now within the fleet.”

Racing at the RC44 Trapani Cup continues through to Sunday 5th May, following the racing via the live tracking and blog at www.rc44.com.