Islas Canarias Puerto Calero claims third spot on the podium after the first fleet race

Puerto Calero and Peninsula Petroleum, in the image, fought a nice battle. PHOTO: Nico Martínez

Peninsula Petroleum is the first leader of the RC44 World Championship, which takes place in Lanzarote.

John Bassadone’s Peninsula Petroleum is the first leader of the RC44 class World Championship, which takes place in Puerto Calero. The boat from Gibraltar surprised the entire fleet and climbed to first place after being today’s most regular boat, with two seconds and a fourth, after recovering several times. Daniel Calero’s Canarias Puerto Calero lies in third place after taking third, first and a seventh place, while Torbjorn Torqvist’s Artemis is second.

The wind helped from the beginning, blowing at 10-12 knots, enabling the races to begin on time. The protagonist of the first race was Pieter Heerema’s No Way Back, from Holland, which led the fleet from the first minute, crossing all the buoy marks in first place. Islas Canarias Puerto Calero, with Daniel Calero at the helm, was the first to catch up and climbed to second place in the following stretches. However, in the last downwind leg, Peninsula Petroleum, which had managed to surpass the entire fleet, beat Calero’s boat in the last metres and crossed the finish line in second place, while the boat from Lanzarote came in third. The arrival of the rest of the fleet was a tight one and the tour’s winner and big favourite, Chris Bake’s Team Aqua, from Great Britain, lost no less than three places at the finish line, and was beaten by Torbjorn Tornqvist’s Artemis, from Sewden, Christian Binder’s AEZ, from Austria, and Igor Lah’s Ceeref, from Slovenia.

There was a general call in the second race of the day, as a large part of the fleet had come out of the starting line, and the start had to be repeated; the second start also saw a black flag, which meant that the boat that started ahead of time would be disqualified for the race. Islas Canarias was brave in the second start and started off the pin line leading the fleet, with a surprising AEZ following behind and arriving to the first windward mark in first and second place, respectively. David Murphy’s Ironbound, from the United States – which could not compete on day one – did a great comeback and arrived in third place. Islas Canarias Puerto Calero emulated No Way Back in the first race, and held on to first place until it arrived to the finish line, winning the race and finishing as provisional overall leader.

Peninsula Petroleum again sailed a brilliant race and crossed the finish line in second position, while Ironbound did so in third place. Surprisingly, No Way Back, winner of the first race, finished in fourteenth place in this second race, closing the fleet.

The third and last race of the day also began with a black flag, with Mag Racing starting ahead of time, and thus being disqualified. Artemis was the first to start and lead the race, followed by Ironbound and Katusha, while Islas Canarias Puerto Calero started also in the leading group of boats in fourth place. However, Artemis ended up crossing the windward mark ahead of Calero’s boat, which crossed it in ninth place. The Spanish boat improved in the next stretches and climbed to sixth place, while Peninsula Petroleum did again a great job and crossed the windward mark in fourth place, behind Artemis, Katusha and No Way Back. In the end, this would be the order of arrival to the finish line in the third race, with Peninsula Petroleum following behind. Islas Canarias Puerto Calero finally crossed the finish line in seventh place, with the boat from Gibraltar taking over the leadership.

John Bassadone was really happy after this first sailing day, in which Peninsula Petroleum will finish as leader: “The truth is that everything has come out really well, the boat has sailed really fast and the team has been perfect, tactically and with the manoeuvres. We can’t ask for more,” the ship-owner from Gibraltar declared, although he is aware that “this is only the beginning, tomorrow we will start as if it were the first day of regattas.”

Daniel Calero was also satisfied with this opening of the World Championship for Islas Canarias Puerto Calero: “We have achieved very good results; this good position in the overall ranking is the result of teamwork and, besides, we managed to win a race competing against such a high-level fleet.” The skipper from Lanzarote also pointed out that “the championship is very long and the goal is to finish all races among the top five to be at the top.”

RANKING
1 Peninsula Petroleum (GBR), 2-2-4, 8 points
2 Artemis (SWE), 4-5-1, 10 points
3 Islas Canarias Puerto Calero (ESP), 3-1-7, 11 points
4 No Way Back (NED), 1-12-3, 16 points
5 Ironbound (GBR), 9-3-5, 17 points
6 AEZ (AUT), 5-7-9, 21 points
7 Katusha (RUS), 8-11-2, 21 points
8 Ceeref (SLO), 6-10-8, 24 points
9 Aqua (GBR), 7-8-10, 25 points
10 Synergy (RUS), 12-9-6, 27 points
11 Nika (RUS), 10-6-13, 29 points
12 Aleph (FRA), 14-4-12, 30 points
13 RUS7 (RUS), 13-13-11, 37 points
14 Mag Racing (POL), 11-14-15, 40 points