Rainbow win one, but Svea lead into final day

Although Rainbow was today’s best scoring J Class team, at the end of a breezy pair of windward leeward races at The Superyacht Cup Palma Richard Mille it is the Swedish flagged Svea which leads into Saturday’s conclusive coastal race by a single point.

The Bay of Palma delivered great winds - even perhaps a little ahead of the wind forecasts expected by the J Class afterguards, a brisk thermal breeze piping up into the high teens at start time for the day’s first race, Race 3 of the no discard series.

But after Svea suffered a hardware issue and could not start, Rainbow were left to sail the course themselves, working hard enough in the breezy conditions to earn their first ever race win as a J Class team.  

Rainbow’s strategist, Ben Saxton, was pleased to put a win on the scorecard however it came, “As a team that is our first race win on Rainbow so that is something to be celebrated no matter how it comes and honestly sailing the J Class yacht in 25 knots on Palma Bay in the sunshine……it does not get much better. And there were some loads on the boat, especially going upwind. It was amazing and even the bear away when the boat is loaded up that too was a really special moment!”

Svea sorted their problem and showed a certain extra urgency on the start line of Race 4. With the wind having eased slightly they started best, having been allocated the pin end. They were able to climb up towards Rainbow’s line and after a couple of tacks Svea extended to the favoured left-hand side, gaining from the geographic Cabo Blanco wind bend. By the first turn Svea were well ahead of Rainbow who are learning fast in the stronger breeze.

So Svea recorded their third race win from four starts and hold the aces going into the last day - a coastal race around the Bay of Palma.

Saxton remains upbeat, “Tomorrow we will go out and try and win the Coastal Race. It should be good fun. I like a variation of format over an event like this. And we will start together again, and it will be fun to race each other when it is a beat and a downwind all the time.”

Svea’s navigator Steve Hayles reported, “It was a busy day for us. We sheeted on before the first race and had no steering, literally no steering. That was a bit worrying. But the guys did a really nice job getting it fixed. And with these long keels you can balance the boat well. But it was race over, we could not get fixed in time.”

“We saw over 20kts. I suspect both boats went out expecting 16 knots and we got more. All of a sudden we were in 21, 22 knots and that’s a big change and these are big, powerful boats. It was ‘wow here we go…’ and in the big gybe that is when our steering gear broke.”

Hayles continued, “The second race was pretty one sided and with the assigned starting position we were pretty happy to be starting off the pin end, off the left end of the line. We were strong off the line and we were quite keen to get into the top left which we did. But we executed well. It is close racing.”

Enjoyment all round

He explains the extra height to windward which Svea have used to good effect, “From where we started you have a little range of modes, you can change the speed half a knot here and that changes the angles a lot. They are incredible upwind boats especially considering when they were designed. In a bit of breeze, they are tacking through very small angles. And you can get quite a lot of control like that. So, off the start line we were trying to get the clamps on them a bit, and we were in a little bit of a high mode. I think we are going really well. They (Rainbow) are going well in a slightly lighter breeze, maybe we are a touch better in the breeze. There is not much in it, and they are getting better every day.”

Looking to Saturday’s finale the Svea navigator adds, “The coastal race will be interesting, these boats are hard to go reaching in. We are enjoying the racing, there is a really nice atmosphere between us and in the class. The main thing right now is everyone is enjoying the sailing.”

30^th Anniversary Superyacht Cup Palma Richard Mille
Race 3
1 Rainbow corrected time 1hr 06m 23s
2 Svea DNS

Race 4
1 Svea 1hr 06m 30s
2 Rainbow 1hr 08m 52s +2m 31s

Cumulative results after four races
1 Svea 1, 1, 3 (DNS), 1   6pts
2 Rainbow 2,2,1,2 7pts