Team Aqua surges as 44Cup Cartagena tightens up in lumpy swell

While the breeze may have dropped for day two of the 44Cup Cartagena, a large lumpy swell remained. At times, having less power to drive through the waves provided an extra challenge for the teams on their high performance RC44 one designs. Yet the racing remained impossibly close, with no team excelling. Top scorer today was Chris Bake's Team Aqua with nine points, compared to Peninsula Racing's five when she was yesterday's top scorer.

Racing at the fifth and final event of the 2026 44Cup is taking place thanks to the generous support of the Ayuntamiento de Cartagena, Gobierno Región de Murcia and the Autoridad Portuaria de Cartagena.

Race 1: six boats, 11 seconds

The first race was 'classic 44Cup', with initial gains made on the left. John Bassadone's Peninsula Racing led Christian Zuerrer's Black Star Sailing Team and Mehmet Taki's Wow! Sailing Team into the top mark, where the Turkish RC44 newbies got the inside berth leading onto the run.

Wow! Sailing Team remained in front for the next lap, but found herself three abreast again at the second top mark rounding. With those astern coming in with breeze, the latter part of the last run became a six-way, head down dash for the line. Nico Poons' Charisma won, beating, in swift succession, GeMera Racing, Black Star Sailing Team and Wow! Sailing Team. The top six boats finished within just 11 seconds.

Race 2: Aqua pounces at 15 knots

Having finished fifth in the first race, overall leader Peninsula Racing suffered another setback in race two. She and Torbjörn Törnqvist's Artemis Racing were OCS at the pin. However, as port tack turned out to be favoured, their loss could have been worse.

Pietro Loro Piana's World Championship-winning Aleph Racing led out to the right but found herself short of the layline. It was Vladimir Prosikhin's Team Nika that led into the top mark, ahead of Team Aqua and Aleph Racing.

A left shift made the race track one-sided, and Team Nika led into the leeward gate. Despite allowing Team Aqua to split right, she was still able to cross ahead on port as they converged up the beat.

Team Nika had a good lead on the run, but Team Aqua left her gybe a little later. Approaching the line, she was able to speed past her rival at 15 knots to win by seven seconds.

Race 3: Nika wins, Aqua steals second

After a wait for the new breeze to fill in, the start of the third and final race saw Charisma and Wow! Sailing Team over early, and GeMera having to perform a turn on the line.

A shift favoured the starboard tackers, and the ever-competitive Peninsula Racing nosed into the lead. Those that had taken an early hit on port tack then made a comeback. Team Nika was first to the top mark, ahead of an overlapped Peninsula Racing and Team Aqua, and pulled out a solid lead on the run and up the next beat.

On the final run Peninsula Racing had pulled up to second, only for Team Aqua once again to make a last surge. She relieved her of second place on the line, this time by just two seconds.

Standings and reaction

Strong results elevated Team Aqua to second place. "It's a tricky race course with a lot of waves and quite a lot of wind," commented Chris Bake. "Today we had everything from 3 to 22 knots and a lot of waves. So, a tricky day for everyone. Cartagena is a beautiful city and I'm excited to be here."

While Team Aqua scored nine points today, Nico Poons' Charisma was close behind on 10. A third in the final race for Peninsula Racing was enough to leave them in first, three points clear of a tied Team Aqua, GeMera Racing and Team Charisma at this halfway stage.

Despite leading, Peninsula Racing's John Bassadone felt there was work still to do: "We were in a pretty good position in the first race - a couple of errors cost us a few points there. The second race we were over the line and didn't really manage to make much of an impact. Then on the third race, we got pipped on the line by Aqua. So quite a few points got left on the table there today. But conditions are tough and we need to improve. Hopefully today was my warm-up and tomorrow hopefully we'll have a better day."

Team Nika's tactician Nic Asher admitted to being occasionally flummoxed. "Sometimes it was hard to know which way to turn or whether you should hold straight or not – it was really difficult."

Of the last race, which they won, Asher added: "We just got a good start. I think we just had a little bit more pressure than some of the other guys and that's massive in that wave state. We started at the boat end with Peninsula and just held for more pressure and then tried to get right when we could for the shift. If you had a little bit more pressure in that stuff, it's a big difference in boat speed."

Tomorrow the southwesterlies are forecast to continue, with the wind building to 18 knots in the afternoon.