It is practice race day for the 52 Series, the prelude to Tuesday’s first race day at the Conde de Godo Barcelona Trophy Regatta, the finale to this year’s Audi MedCup Circuit.
Conde de Godo Barcelona Trophy, 12 09 2011 © Francesco Ferri_Studio Borlenghi Audi MedCup
The Garbi sea breeze is expected to prevail at least over the first few days of this key regatta, dropping in intensity as the event progresses.
With a N’ly Mistral blowing in the Gulf of Lyons to the east a large circulation is set up in this part of the western Med which enhances this southerly sea breeze.
It has been a slightly overcast morning though the prospects for breeze are good, expecting up to 18 or 19kts with choppy, steep seas.
Conde de Godo Barcelona Trophy, 12 09 2011 © Francesco Ferri_Studio Borlenghi-Audi MedCup
The 52 Series fleet will do their two practice starts before rolling into the official practice race.
For Bribon this will be an emotional week on their home city, but project manager Ignasi Triay says the crew are not speaking about this being their swansong:
“This 2011´s last event and the truth is that we´ve improved every day until now. We are in Barcelona, our hometown, and a lot of noise has been made about the fact that this is Bribón´s last event. It seems that it´s something that´s affecting a lot of people who are around the event, but it doesn´t affect our crew. We hear a lot about it but we don´t look at it the way this that people does. We are focused in this event because we are in a good place in the general standings, with good possibilities to do something big, even reaching the podium. We are thinking about doing a good job here these days, we´ll have enough time to think about this being our last event on Saturday evening. We have to stick to our plan, to be consistent and not make too many mistakes.”
Kevin Hall (USA), Navigator, Quantum Racing (USA):
We are looking forward to competing here in Barcelona this week, there are great teams here and the competition has come down to the last event and that´s pretty exciting for all of us, our strategy is to sail well, and you could argue that if we sail this regatta to win it with good solid finishes that should do it for the season as well, but there are a couple other teams who are probably thinking the same thing, so it will be exciting. We don´t talk about points, it´s such a small advantage that we don´t even count on them to help us right now”.
