In Saturday’s first two races Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika, fitted with the defending champion’s/season leader’s golden wheels, got off to a good start and had pulled out a solid lead by the top mark.
From there she went on to win ahead of the overall leader Hugues Lepic’s Aleph Racing and Nico Poons’ Charisma in the first race and Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing and Charisma in the second.
Going into the day’s final race, just one point separated Aleph Racing from Charisma and Team Nika.
Sadly Team Nika’s luck was not to last. They reached the top mark mid-fleet, rounding outside of John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing and a small encouraging luff to keep them out of the way was enough to send Team Nika into a costly broach. Then they missed the layline on the first downwind and that was it – they couldn’t recover.
At last, after a strong start Friday, Igor Lah’s Team Ceeref Vaider finally scored a win in the day’s third race.
On the first upwind Ceeref just managed to nose in front of the group heading back from the left and pulled onto the starboard layline, with the inside berth, just bow forward on Artemis Racing.
Attempting to play the shifts up the second beat, Nico Poons’ Charisma and Artemis Racing appeared to have a piece of Ceeref, but the Slovenian team managed to cover in time and led around the top mark, ahead of Charisma and Artemis Racing, and on to the finish.
Going into the final day Aleph Racing and Charisma, effectively the day’s winner with a 3-3-2, are tied at the top of the leaderboard, six points ahead of Team Nika.
