We have a winner!
Gitane Extreme Groupe LCF Rothschild skippered by Yann Guichard, managed to score 140 points. Second was James Spithill and his crew in BMW Oracle Racing and third, surprisingly a newcummer, Renaissance skippered by Loick Peyron.
Venice is definitely a city to come back to; If they open up the racing to have a little more time we could have done 8 races today. We managed seven. Very wel done by Tim and his team.
Not easy in these reaching conditions. It was all about reaching the first mark and then the train started. Only Chris steering in Oman Red (Masirah) was able to take advantage of rule 18.2(c). And get an inside overlap on the front boat because they couldn't tack after passing the mark.
Most penalties were again at the start and with mark roundings. The new definition of overlap must still give some boats problems....
I'm typing this after the event and prizegiving. Together with David I'll spent one more night - although very short - in Venice by flying home tomorrow at 06:25.. It means we will have to get up at four to catch the bus at five.... And walking trough Venice for half an hour in the early hours of the morning.
I was again umpire 2 today with Thibaut. The most challenging part was to find a good place to be at the fourth mark in a special E course the RC came up with after the first race. It was reaching up and down in that first one. With the train of boats you have a hard time getting outside and making sure there were no mark touchings. Inside we could do rule 18 and 13 perfectly well, but we missed the markpassing after tack. Even getting very close to the mark was hard because then we had no oppertunity to bail out fast enough in case someone wasn't given mark-room and had to pass on the wrong side.
It was a great event and if I may make a personal observation, I felt definitly more relaxed then last year. Knowing what is expected and being certain of the rules makes difference.
I'm looking foreward to Hyeres in one month already.
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