Synergy impress at TP52 World Championship
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Your support makes all the difference.The Russians in the form of the Synergy team put in a strong performance on the first day of the TP52 World Championship on a perfect day for racing.
Having parted company with their Polish skipper Karol Jablonski, Synergy found its legs with a fifth in the first of three races, winning the second two to share the overnight lead with the 2008 Audi MedCup champions from the United Stares, Quantum.
Seven of a nine-boat fleet have been contesting the MedCup all season – the 10th, Spain’s Bribon is being repaired in Mallorca after being seriously damaged in Sardinia – and have been joined by two British owners, Tony Langley and Johnny Vincent.
Their first two races saw them in eighth and ninth places, the first separated by two seconds, the second by three seconds, but a seventh in the final race of the day saw Vincent’s Pace make it honours even with Langley’s Weapon of Choice also on 25 points. The two top boats have seven.
Both Synergy, looking increasingly unlikely to enter the next America’s Cup on the day that Team Germany also announced it was sitting out in 2013, and Quantum will be building new boats for next season. A major new British entry is also imminent, filling a hole created by the departure of Sir Keith Mills, skipper Ben Ainslie and Team Origin from both the America’s Cup and the MedCup events.
The results of the ballot to elect two members of the America’s Cup Race Management board, giving representation to members of the challenger group, are expected on Wednesday as the chief executive officer, Australian Iain Murray, seems likely to headquarter the event management company in Britain, at the south coast yachting centre of Hamble.
Ainslie is in Bermuda this week, taking part in the Argo-sponsored Gold Cup, which is part of the World Match Racing Tour. As well as the GAC Pindar team’s former double world champion Ian Williams, he will be racing alongside British women’s Olympic medal hopeful Lucy Macgregor.
The fleet for the Velux 5 Oceans singlehanded, staged round the world race starting from La Rochelle on 17 October, was, barring a miracle, reduced to an expected five when the Belgian competitor, Christophe Bullens was dismasted off northern France.
His Open 60 was also badly damaged and some sails wrecked, but Bullens was insisting that he will still make every effort to be on the start line.
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