44Cup Marina Jandía 2025 - Day 3

Just when it appeared that the form was emerging between the RC44 teams at the 44Cup Marina Jandía - Chris Bake's Team Aqua on day one, Vladimir Prosikhin's Team Nika and Hugues Lepic's Aleph Racing on day two - so day three produced some new winners and new leaders going into the final day.

The waters off Fuerteventura's southern tip threw up further superb conditions with brilliant sunshine, easterly winds of 15 knots that built to 20+. But once it again the sizeable, random seastate was most notable. For PRO Maria Torrijo's race team this presented problems with photo finishes as some RC44s slowly edged across the line stuck in troughs, and pipped at the post as other competitors surfed through at double their speed, their crews in all guns blazing, yee-haw, hair on fire mode.

44Cup Marina Jandía 2025 - photo © Nico Martimez / Martinez Studio

Prevailing today were the Törnqvist family's two RC44s - Artemis Racing and GeMera Racing. In the opening race Torbjörn Törnqvist's Artemis Racing went hard left up the first beat to lead at the top mark and held on from there, despite prolonged challenges from John Bassadone's Peninsula Racing. Sadly the Gibraltar team's challenge fell apart on the final run, overtaken when GeMera and Nico Poons' Charisma Racing chose to gybe early, relegating her to fifth.

Artemis Racing was on track to win the second race too, this time having started on the right and taking the left of the first beat later on to lead around the top mark ahead of GeMera and Team Aqua. However immediately after the second top mark rounding her kite blew up handing GeMera the bullet. Remarkably Artemis Racing managed to hoist a replacement kite in record time and having dropped back to fifth recovered three places to salvage a second ahead of a charging Charisma.

44Cup Marina Jandía 2025 - photo © Nico Martimez / Martinez Studio

In a high scoring day for all teams, even the immaculate Swedes suffered in the final race with, on this occasion, GeMera Racing blowing out a kite going on to the run but salvaging a fifth as Artemis Racing came home eighth. "We found some extra boat speed upwind that we didn't have yesterday," explained GeMera Racing's tactician Francesco Bruni. "It was a few things on the trimming, on the sails. Yesterday we had some gremlins in the electronics as well: Our compass was not really working. So we fixed a few things and the boat was definitely going better today. Obviously the last race was a big disappointment - we were leading when we blew up the kite on the first hoist. But the guys definitely a great job coming back and finishing fifth."

Artemis Racing's bowman Brad Ferrand explained their day: "The boats were going well. The first two races went well, although we had a hiccup in the second race. I think blowing out the kite was to do with the windward sheet being too tight around the front."

So why are the Swedish teams doing so well? Ferrand continued: "I think we've been working hard all year to get our boat speed going on the J2. We've been slowly chipping away and finally it feels like we've got good boat speed."

The third race turned into a war of attrition. Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team did not take part after suffering rudder problems in the previous race, leaving nine boats on the race course. GeMera's kite explosion allowed through Peninsula Racing, but in turn they had trouble at the start of the second beat handing the lead and eventually the win to Team Nika, by a hair from Peninsula Racing. There was a last minute charge for the finish line with four seconds separating GeMera from a fully overlapped Team Aqua and Aleph Racing. However proudest was the Wow! Sailing Team of Turkey's Mehmet Taki and Murat Edin who's fourth place was the best result to date for the new 44Cup team.

44Cup Marina Jandía 2025 - photo © Nico Martimez / Martinez Studio

While helming Taki had led around the top mark in one race yesterday, today Murat Edin had taken over: "It was really good," he commented. "A lot of other people had problems, but luckily we didn't have many difficulties. We're getting better as a team, building the cohesion. The downwinds are so much fun in these conditions. I think we saw like 21 or 22 knots. In the second upwind, we came in really high, and we were lucky to sneak through., After that we just went full on downwind, and gained some spots there. But I don't see much when I'm driving!"

Edin is looking forward to tomorrow when the forecast is for ligther winds: "[These big waves] are very tiring. My shoulders and my arms are killing me, but I can't say anything because everyone else on the crew is working so hard!"

While GeMera Racing was the top scoring boat of the day, second with a 3-4-3 was Nico Poons' Charisma. "It's pretty hard," commented his team's tactician Andy Horton. "Just getting off the line for us has been the issue as the waves make it more difficult. The wrong wave can make you early or late when you are trying to judge the timing. You see the boats kind of launch on starboard and start with a bang or you can lose 20 seconds if you're down speed. So that's really hard.

"It's a battle out there with these boats - they're so hard to sail. But it was just beautiful conditions. Today was the nicest day we've had in years with a little more breeze and bigger waves than yesterday and waves big enough to gybe on."

Tomorrow will be a change on the race course again with the wind forecast to shut down mid-afternoon. As a result the schedule is being advanced by one hour with a first warning signal scheduled for 1100. Mathematically at present any of the top seven boats can still win here.

Results after Day 3: