Star of the day was unquestionably Ben Ainslie and his America’s Cup crew on board Ineos Team UK
The British team won three consecutive races of today’s five, coming second in the remaining two.
This was despite being called over early in the first race – Friday’s only race held with a reaching start (due to a wind shift, the latter four races had upwind starts).
Ainslie now leads after five races by eight points from Simon Delzoppo’s .film Racing with Erik Maris’ Zoulou in third place.
The Swiss Realteam had a dramatic start to their regatta, breaking their mast in the opening race. Having made the best start, Realteam pulled into the lead only for her mast to break on the second downwind leg.
This race ended up being won by Erik Maris’ Zoulou. “We did benefit from our competitor’s attrition,”</i> admitted Maris. <i>“I hope Realteam will make it back to sail tomorrow.”
GC32 TPM Med Cup after 5 races
1st GBR INEOS TEAM UK 2 1 1 1 2 – – 7 pts
2nd AUS .film Racing 5 3 4 2 1 – – 15 pts
3rd FRA Zoulou 1 6 3 3 5 – – 18 pts
4th FRA NORAUTO 6 2 2 4 4 – – 18 pts
5th USA Argo 3 5 5 7 3 – – 23 pts
6th NZL Frank Racing 4 4 6 5 7 – – 26 pts
7th FRA Métropole Toulon PM 7 7 7 6 6 – – 33 pts
8th SUI Realteam 9 9 9 9 9 – – 45 pts