Lanzarote is providing the complete test for the RC44 owners and crews this week at the 44Cup Calero Marinas, held out of Puerto Calero . After a moderate opening day and winds gusting to 20+ knots on Friday, today the start of racing had to be postponed by 2 hours 15 minutes as teams and race committee waited for the wind to build and stabilise.
Once again RC44 Class President Chris Bake, tactician Cameron Appleton and the crew on Team Aqua came out all guns blazing. With the wind from the west, blowing along the Lanzarote coastline (much like Thursday, but lighter), the same tactics of heading right often seemed to work. Team Aqua applied this in the first race, winning the boat end of the line and hammering right hardest, just managing to keep Pietro Loro Piana and the Aleph Racing crew in their rear view mirror. But odd things were happening on the race course causing the rich to get massively richer until the end of the final run when the boats caught up from behind with breeze. Nonetheless Team Aqua hung on to score her second bullet of the regatta, finishing seven seconds ahead of Aleph Racing and a 48 ahead of John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing.
Team Aqua followed this with a second, pulling them four points clear, only to lose it all in the last race when after some poor decisions on the start line they finished last, dropping them to third overall.
The last proved a race Bake would rather forget: “We were penalised by Nika and then I couldn't figure out which way to turn to start again. So that put us behind. Then we got stuck on the windward mark and got penalised - so that was that race gone. But the other two races were good: Good boat speed and good dynamics on board.” They have some new crew for 2026, including British man mountain grinder Krishan Bhogal and Spanish veteran Javier de la Plaza trimming jib.
Bake added that he had found today’s conditions challenging: “Compared to yesterday, it was really hard because it was all over God's creation.”
The 2025 44Cup champion, Vladimir Prosikhin's Team Nika, has been having a trying regatta to date and their tactician unexpectedly having to return home and coach Tomaz Copi stepping in as his replacement. This new-found relationship is taking a while to bed in but came good in the second race, which Team Nika won. In this everyone went right up the first beat but Prosikhin and his crew had nailed the start and led Aqua around the top mark and held on from there.
However, in the hero to zero nature of the racing for some here, Team Nika accidentally rammed Artemis Racing in the start of the next race, their plight only slightly alleviated by that of Team Aqua being worse. They finished the race seventh, receiving two additional penalty points. A highly apologetic Prosikhin lamented: “I reacted a bit too late and just hit the boat. But it was extremely crowded. It was a very challenging situation and we didn't handle it well.” Fortunately RC44s are built to withstand such abuse and Artemis Racing is having her removable transom replaced this evening and will be back tomorrow.
The final race should have gone the way of Markus Törnqvist's GeMera Racing which led until the start of the final downwind when they gybe set at the top mark while Peninsula Racing, chasing them, held on starboard. The leg ultimately turned into a three-way fight with Aleph Racing too, with Peninsula Racing ultimately winning, 11 seconds ahead of GeMera Racing and another three ahead of Aleph Racing.
“Obviously Checco [Francesco Bruni, GeMera Racing tactician] was a little unlucky on the last one,” commented Peninsula Racing’s tactician Vasco Vascotto. “He gybe set and the reality was that when he arrived there was not too much wind there. Just a couple of boatlengths behind, I saw that there was more pressure going straight, and obviously that was a good choice.”
And at the end: “The wind was coming from behind, so Aleph and GeMera got very close, and Checco - we were able just to gybe a couple of lengths in front of him. It could have gone either way.”
Aside from Team Aqua, the day was a good one for the Italian tacticians on Peninsula, Aleph and Gemera, who are notoriously adept in handling challenging conditions. “We like crazy things!” Vascotto summarised.
Peninsula Racing’s helm John Bassadone was pleased with their day “apart from the second race, which was a bit annoying.” In that, after a poor start, they had come home sixth. “It was good to get the bullet for the last race of the day after a gybing war! That was good and we had great work from all the crew. That last gybe was crucial and got us the win.”
Although winning no races today, Pietro Loro Piana’s Aleph Racing was top scoring boat of the day with a 2-4-3. “It was shifty, but not in the classical way, where we’d play all the shifts,” explained tactician Michele Ivaldi. “It was a pretty hard right-hand track. It was a big bonus to start well at the race committee and we managed that in the first two races. Downwind, it was trickier because there were little puffs and empty spots. Today, the boat was going really well. Pietro and the trimmers did a super good job. Unfortunately, with a few mistakes over the last two days we are a bit behind…” Aleph Racing is currently fourth, 11 points from the podium.
Racing is scheduled to start at midday tomorrow with conditions similar to today but with an offshore breeze.