A tough day for Longtze

At the start of the first race, Longtze faced the green boat from Desafio Espanol. The home team, helmed by the Polish Karol Jablonski is in the running for a place in the semi-finals so it is a motivated team which is waiting for China Team.

Longtze enters into the prestart area as the non-right of way boat and looks to gain the right hand side after the dialup. The Iberian boat closes the door and takes Longtze on a ride through the media and spectator boats. Returning back to the line, Longtze is on the right but Jablonski is in front and files across the line one boat length ahead. For Pierre Mas, they must from then on engage in an intense tacking duel to try and escape the Spanish. 19 tacks later, the muscles of the grinders are warmed up but Jablonski has his cover and prevents all the Chinese attempts. Longtze passes the first buoy 30 seconds behind its competition. El Desafio accentuates their lead and finishes 2 minutes earlier than CHN95.

The somber note of the day, is Mikael Mergui’s accident, 10th in the World Match Racing circuit with Damien Iehl and is a genoa trimmer on Longtze.
“During the pre-start maneuvers, I caught my wrist in the sheet while releasing it. I tried to undo it, but in pulling to get loose, I caught my finger in a knot and it broke. We had to reorganize on board right in the middle of the tacking duel. Piotr Przbylski, the other genoa and spinnaker sail trimmer did the sheeting in and I continued to release the sheet. It is a little break but it will mean at least two weeks of immobilization. I am a little disappointed, but that’s the way it is.”

In the second race of the day, CHN95 had to abandon the race following a problem around the mast collar area.

Pierre MAS, skipper
“We started badly in the first start, but made up ground. We did 19 tacks afterwards, which went well and allowed us to maintain the distance. They remained a little faster, even if our boat was sailing better down wind with more wind. Against Mascalzone, we had a truly rough and tumble start in 18-19 knots of wind. We got off well but we crossed the line one second too soon, its a shame. Afterwards, during the first upwind, we heard a noise in the mast collar adjuster. We preferred to remain prudent and returned to verify what had happened. It was a minor problem and we will go out to race tomorrow.”

Results: flight 6

OFF: BMW ORACLE RACING

Résuls: flight 7

 OFF: Victory Challenge

General classification after 7 matches