Team Sea Dubai, with Dubliner Dave McHugh on board, settled into joint second place with Team Aqua in the RC44 Austria Cup after superb sailing on day one. The team had drafted in decorated Dragon sailor Harm Muller Spreer at the helm which seems to have gone down a treat. The only fly in the ointment was a slightly shaky start though for the team which bought two penalties against BMW Oracle and lost them the first match.
But their fortunes changed and an excellent day of racing ensued leaving only one point between them and the leader. They won against Paul Cayard on Katusha, Terry Hutchinson on Artemis, Christian Binder on Team Austria and Jose Maria Ponce on Puerto Calero, finding the winning form of the Al Maktoum Sailing Trophy in Dubai.
‘We started the day a bit rusty and perhaps tried to be a bit greedy, but we settled down and the day turned out great,’ said Markus Wieser, the Sea Dubai match race skipper. ‘It felt really good to be able to repeat our performance from the first round and the conditions were fantastic today.’
The event village in the heart of Gmunden ensured the spectator buzz started early and the dock out of the ten boats impressed the crowd in the warm sunshine. The sunny climes however are predicted to be short lived with rain expected for the weekend bringing a totally new set of conditions for the teams to deal with.
Provisional Results:
1st BMW Oracle, 5:
2nd Team Sea Dubai, 4:
3rd Team Aqua, 4:
4th Katusha, 3:
5th Artemis, 3
6th No Way Back, 3:
7th RC44 Challenge, 3:
8th Ceeref, 2:
9th Islas Canariea Puerto Calero, 1
10th AEZ RC44 Sailing Team, 0
