Atlantic Cup Inshore Series Day 1 - Eärendil holds onto slim lead
by Julianna Barbieri 10 Jun 2018 05:55 BST
9-10 June 2018
2018 Atlantic Cup Inshore Series - Day 1 © Billy Black
Under sunny skies and a north-northwesterly with periods of 7-10 and 10-12 knot breeze, a total of three races were held in the third and final leg of the inshore Series in the Atlantic Cup. Ten teams battled for additional points in picturesque Casco Bay just off of Fort Allen Park in Portland, Maine.
Amhas took the first race on their home waters while Angola Cables crossed the finish line first for race two. However, after realizing a mistake was made and a mandatory race mark was missed, the team retired from the race which resulted in a race win for Dragon. Boston based Toothface II had a strong performance throughout the afternoon. The team finished in second and third in the first two races before securing a first-place finish in the final race, which helped them edge into second overall. Toothface is holding a 3-point lead ahead of Portland based Amhas.
Currently in first place, Catherine Pourre of Eärendil: "Today was really good, it went about as we expected. In fact, we had more wind than we expected. We should have done better, especially on the second course where we started early which was a very silly thing to do because we didn't need to do that. But, we recovered which was important. Toothface had an amazing day on all three courses and I think they needed this. The entire day was really fun.
For tomorrow, we're going to do the same. We're going to stick to what we did today and try to do what Toothface is doing. They are the only boat that can really have an impact on us and we'll try to do our best. I hope there will be some wind for us tomorrow and we'll try to be better than we did today."
Currently in second, Tristan Mouligne, Co-Skipper Toothface II spoke on their performance overall: "It was a great way to end the day. It's always nice to be the first boat back to the dock. It was a good day, we were a little disappointed in the first race, we had a nice lead but we were so laser focused on Eärendil in second that we totally lost track of Amhas and they snuck outside and went right around us. They had a great race and we were disappointed not to win that one after being upfront pretty good. But a 1, 2, 3 for the day is good, so we are excited.
Tristan went on to talk about the on water rivalry with Amhas, "We just talked about it with those guys, we are excited to be battling them. It depends on if we get two races in, if we get two races in then thats a throw out for them, so I look at it like we are still even. We are looking at tomorrow like a separate regatta and look at on beating them both races tomorrow. We don't want to mess around with too many points, and just make sure we keep ourselves in front of them no matter what."
Micah Davis, skipper of Amhas spoke about his team's performance which saw them drop from second into third, "It was good, up and down, which is not surprising given the conditions. We got a first in the first race, a second or a third in the third race, pending protest, and then the wheels came off in the third race. I think we were 6th across the line. We sailed into a hole on the second run after being in pressure the whole time, every leg that we had been down there we had a little breeze, and there just wasn't. We thought we were going to be in third coming around the mark but we ended up in sixth. We couldn't claw our way back in."