29th July- 5th August
After a wobbly start into the season with half of my equipment breaking in Villasimius (including the navigation pc and the onboard network) I made sure that I would not run into any of these troubles again at any of the remaining regattas. Thankfully also the rest of the crew had realized that we needed to do something so in July we got an expert on the boat to give every piece of electronic that looked like it had its best days behind it a makeover.
Being the peak event of our season, and with the new electronics, the crew was in high spirits before the event. Palma is always a great place to be and usually delivers great seabreeze conditions. However, this year we were surprised by the weather with two days of very strong northerly breeze and a very shifty westerly breeze on the last day. With a penalty in one of the races in 25kts we did not have the best start to the regatta but with better race performance in the following races made our way up to 2nd place going into the final day.
On the final day we had our struggles and almost lost our podium spot. We went around the top mark of the last race very much at the back of the fleet. It was “gloves off” as our tactician Cameron said to me. So we decided to gybeset and go to the opposite side of the race course than the fleet. We gained many positions back on that downwind – just enough to snatch back 2nd place from the Italian Team with boat number 03 “Vitamina”.
In true Copa del Rey fashion, we enjoyed a fancy prize giving ceremony in the cathedral of Palma and received a handshake by the Spanish King.
segellena 