Bacardi Cup-Day 5, Grael/Goncalves leading the fleet

Today’s 5th race of the 91st Bacardi Cup was held under perfect “Bacardi” conditions…..10 knots of wind from North North East.  This is still a shifty direction with the wind coming off downtown.

World Champions Lars Grael and Samuel Goncalves led wire to wire after playing the right side up the first windward leg. Diego Negri with Sergio Lambertenghi were right behind them followed by Eric Doyle.  Mark and I worked the left side, against the 10 degree right shift, but still mananged to round the first Mark 12th.  We were fast today, up and down wind.

It was a 5 legged course today with the final leg to windward. This gave Mark and I time, which we used well, to get up to 4th place by the finish.  We passed 2 boats in the final 50 meters. Grael, Negri and Scheidt were the front three and behind us were Doyle, Diaz , Lawrence, Percy, Melleby and Rohart.  8 world champions in the first 10.  It’s great racing out there!  So happy to be part of it!

So Negri has a 4 point cushion going into the final race over three boats that are tied on 14 points; Grael, Scheidt, Melleby. Mark and I are 7 points behind those three and can pass them with a very good race tomorrow. Unfortunately, we can’t win the regatta as Negri’s score counting all his races (including his discard) is  21 and the least we can finish with is 22.

The forecast for tomorrow is for good wind, maybe even strong from the East-Southeast.

For complete scores go to: www.yachtscoring.com

Paul Cayard