Following the RC44 class’ World Championship in Cowes in August, the 44Cup resumes on Thursday morning in the shadow of another famous maritime British empire outpost - Gibraltar.
Host of this event for the high-performance owner-driver one designs is the 624-berth Alcaidesa Marina. This is in Spain, metres across the border from the northern ‘Pillar of Hercules’, home of John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing team. Racing at the 44Cup Alcaidesa Marina will start tomorrow on the Bay of Gibraltar at 1100 CEST.
Irish sailors on the 44Cup circuit are Donaghdee's Oisin McClelland and Dublin Bay's Cian Guilfoyle on board Aleph Racing, and Wicklow's Simon Johnson is on the Black Star Racing Team.
Appropriately, given the move to Spain for this fourth event of the 2023 44Cup, a Spanish team will be in charge of the class’s trial RC44 this week. While the Noticia team has been a regular feature of Spanish yacht racing for years, the international community will most likely remember the name from a decade ago when a Noticia Soto 40 competed in the complimentary one-design fleet to the TP52s on the Audi Medcup. Noticia’s Santander-based owner Luis Martín Cabiedes, later recruited the remnants of the Iberdrola former Spanish America’s Cup crew, performing well in the process.
From an IMX 40 to the Soto 40 and then on to J/80s (racing with Jose Maria ‘Pichu’ Torcida - two time J/80 World Champion) and a J/70 (with Torcida and Rayco Tabares – five time J/80 World Champion), both popular classes in Spain, Cabiedes acknowledges his yacht racing has retrograded over the last decade. But there is good reason for this: “Four or five years ago I decided to start steering, which will mean that I can keep racing for longer. So far we haven’t had good results, but I am no5 in the J/70 ranking in Spain. The truth is that I always like to sail with very very good crew like this one.”
Due to the severe weather forecast for later on Thursday afternoon, the race committee has chosen to advance the first start by one hour to 1100.
