Audi MedCup 2008 - The Yankees take Marseille

Marseille, France - Skipper Russell Coutts on USA-17 took the City of Marseille Trophy Regatta as the Mistral wind shut down the final day of racing prematurely today. This is the only race in the 2008 Audi MedCup Circuit in which USA-17 will compete, as the team now focuses on the America's Cup competition - at least the competition outside of the courts.

Said Coutts: “We exceeded our expectations by a lot at this event. We are more than happy to win. I think obviously Reichel/Pugh designers did a good job giving us a nice design especially in the conditions we had. We had the boat moving along nicely. The team combined well, quickly, and we can still improve a lot more, but we did enough to get there in the end." Regarding the team's decision to pop in for a quick win and then leave, Coutts says “I would love to do more on this Circuit. It is a great circuit. It is not that we don’t want to do more, but we have to focus on the multihull for the America's Cup. That’s obvious, but there will be a time when we come back into this class and enjoy it again.”

USA-17’s helm and co-strategist James Spithill loved the course: “Marseille has been an awesome race track, really interesting with plenty of breeze, but the good thing as well is that it has always been changing with the shifts, so there has never been a ‘must-have’ side of the course. It has been about playing the shifts all the time.”

In a typical display of lax nationalism, the "USA" skipper is a Kiwi, and Spithill an Aussie. As with most sailors, their first nation appears to be the sea.

Just behind USA-17 was the Swedish boat Artemis (crewed by some BMW Oracle Racing team-mates on the identical Reichel/Pugh-designed hull). Artemis was six points adrift of the lead after eight races, including a 40 mile race on the coast. The partnership between USA-17 and Artemis (SWE) has been a key part of the "American" boat's success in Marseille, which Ellison himself helmed through parts of most of the races. Although the new USA-17 was only launched on May 21st, the wisdom gathered from Artemis in Alicante earlier last month was applied directly to USA-17 to get her up to speed quickly.

After a modest sixth and fifth on the opening day, USA-17 won three races to complement their two third places, one second and one fourth place. The boat looked fast and perfectly at home over a regatta where the wind speed never fell below 15 knots.

Jose Cusi’s Bribón, steered by Dean Barker (NZL) with double Olympic medallist Ross MacDonald (CAN) on tactics, arrived in Marseille in second place in the overall Audi MedCup Circuit standings. Now Bribón leaves France’s third city with an seven point lead over Artemis, the boat that moved furthest up the rankings.

“We are more satisfied with the result than the performance in reality,” said Ignacio Triay, Bribón’s project manager and trimmer, “We had been suffering a lot with the conditions of wind and waves because we could feel that the boat was not going as well as the boats leading here in France. We have been working hard all week trying to find the right settings for the rig and also improving the crew work on board. We were not good enough to win the event here and we feel that maybe we could do better with these conditions, but on the other hand we are really satisfied because the boats that were going well in light airs in Alicante, were not so good here and vice versa. The boats with problems in light airs have done well here in Marseille. So we have been consistent – never brilliant, but always there, which is why we are leading the Audi MedCup circuit.”

No less than three boats were eliminated from racing, due to damage inflicted from collisions at the first mark of Thursday’s coastal race (from which two boats were subsequently disqualified).

City of Marseille Trophy
Top 10 Final Results after eight races (14 starters)

1st USA-17 (26)
2nd Artemis SWE (32)
3rd Bribón ESP (38.2)
4th Platoon by Team Germany GER (41)
5th Quantum Racing USA (46)
6th Matador ARG (50)
7th CxG Caixa Galicia ESP (57.6)
8th El Desafío ESP (70)
9th Audi by Q8 ITA (73)
10th Cristabella GBR (78)

2008 Audi MedCup Circuit Top 10 Standings
Provisional Results after 16 races

1st Bribón ESP 84
2nd Artemis SWE 92
3rd Quantum Racing USA 92
4th Platoon by Team Germany GER 99
5th Mean Machine MON 119
6th El Desafío ESP 135
7th Matador ARG 139
8th Audi by Q8 ITA 159
9th Cristabella GBR 163
10th Mutua Madrileña ESP 173

- Brad Hampton / Photos: Martinez/Roman/AUDI MEDCUP

Video of the Audi MedCup Circuit