Trinity Racing grabbed their first race win of the regatta with a commanding display on the third day at Marina Rubicón, but the real story is how Sled’s consistency continues to pull them clear at the top of the standings. Takashi Okura’s crew snuck into third place while Paprec stumbled to ninth, leaving the early-season leaders four points adrift at the midpoint of the week.
The race committee faced a tough window, seizing the moment between 30-knot gusts to get one race away. Joakim Sundberg’s Swedish team made it look simple—literally. After starting cleanly on the right end of the line, they headed straight there and stayed ahead for the entire windward-leeward course. Paprec made a last-minute port-end bail-out that cost them immediately, then compounded their problems with a spinnaker sheet tangle at the windward mark that forced a double gybe and sent them down the field.
Ed Baird, Trinity’s tactician, credited the team’s deliberate approach to the shifty conditions. “Our whole season is going to be about keeping it simple,” he explained. “The one time we got in a complicated situation yesterday it went really bad. It’s obvious we just have to make it straightforward.” The crew had spotted the right-hand side of the course firing before the start and committed to it early, allowing them to ride a favourable shift into the lead.
Trinity’s climb from eighth overall after day one reflects their learning curve in heavy air. Baird acknowledged the challenges: they’d trawled their gennaker early in the regatta and got caught in traffic on day two. “For this group—and especially the Swedes—it’s the first time we’ve ever sailed these boats in this much wind and these conditions,” he said. “It’s tough, but we’re learning something new every day.”
Sled’s Murray Jones played down their third place as a solid consolidation rather than a statement. “None of the days so far have been easy,” he reflected. “Today was complicated with lots of breeze shifts at the top mark. We were dipping, tacking, slamming dunks. Fortunately we got around in reasonable shape.” The downwind legs proved tight, with five boats separated by barely a boat length. One big pressure system eventually pushed through and sorted things out, but by then Sled had done enough to extend their overall lead to 30 points—though Jones insisted they’re not watching the bigger picture. “We’re not focussing on that. It’s one day at a time. We just focus on this regatta.”
Andrea Lacorte’s Alkedo Vitamina snapped up second place and moved to third overall, climbing through a tightly-bunched middle fleet. Cameron Appleton, their tactician, praised the cohesion on deck. “The fleet was really close together,” he said. “Other than Trinity, who got away, all the boats we stayed with—Alegre, Platoon, Sled—we had a huge fight the whole way. We were pretty pleased things went our way.”
Paprec’s day unravelled before the first mark. Stéphane Névé outlined the cascade of problems: pedestals overdrive issues during the race, poor tactical decisions that saw them take unnecessary risks on the left side, then the gennaker sheet incident that forced the costly double gybe. “Overall not such a good day,” he understated.
