44Cup World Championship in Brunnen, Switzerland – Overall ranking

by 44Cup August 25, 20:40 UTC
21-25 August 2024

The 44Cup World Championship Brunnen ended today on the Swiss Lake Lucerne with a highly intense battle for the lead between Vladimir Prosikhin’s team Nika and Igor Lah’s team Ceeref Vaider.

The 44Cup Brunnen community spent Saturday evening cruising on Lake Uri (Lucerne) aboard a giant paddle steamer, followed by a long fireworks display that set new standards for 44Cup events. But during the night a storm rolled in, the rain continued into the morning, and the huge Alpine peaks surrounding the lake were shrouded in clouds.

Eventually the rain eased and the wind became strong enough for PRO Maria Torrijo to sail three races. In very different conditions, Torbjörn Törnqvist’s Artemis Racing took their second win in an otherwise highly rated regatta in race one. The reigning RC44 World Champions followed – Nico Poons’ Charisma took their first race win here, while Chris Bake’s Team Aqua took their third but first ever race win aboard their new RC44s (both Peninsula Racing and Team Aqua raced brand new boats here). Incredibly, eight of the nine RC44s won races here, demonstrating the competitiveness of this experienced, high-performance owner-driver one-design class.

But today all eyes were on the old rivals – Team Nika who hold the ‘golden wheels’ of the 44Cup as the current best team of the season; both teams are former World Champions and both have successful British former Olympic sailing tacticians. They started Sunday level on points with Team Ceeref Vaider ahead on the count back. A fifth place for Nika to Ceeref’s fourth put the Slovenian team a point ahead going into race two when Nika finished second while Ceeref performed phenomenally to recover to third. Thus the two teams started the final race again level on points with Ceeref ahead on the count back.

Match racing was inevitable and with a minute to go, Team Nika came downwind of their rival, just behind the race committee boat, locking them out. Team Ceeref Vaider could do nothing but follow Team Nika across the finish line. The private argument between the two ended with them being the last to reach the windward mark. On the run, Ceeref drew level with the gate and after Team Nika reached the port gate mark, Ceeref was finally able to shake off Nika’s cover and break through to starboard. “Unfortunately,” explained Adrian Stead, Team Ceeref Vaider’s tactician, “it was busier at our gate and then we had so much traffic…”

From then on, Team Nika led from Ceeref, and seventh and eighth places were enough for Prosikhin, Asher and the multinational Team Nika squad of James Baxter, Pierluigi De Felice, Harry Hall, Pietro Mantovani, Taavi Taveter, Federica Salva and Jeremy Lomas to secure their unprecedented fourth RC44 World Championship title.

“It’s one of the happiest events of my life because honestly it was so hard,” admitted Prosikhin after receiving the class’s ritual plunge into the water. “It’s a very strong class and all the teams are equal – almost any boat can win the World Championship, which is very rare. It’s a privilege to win and I’m very proud. I want to thank my crew and Nic (Asher) and the boat captain who prepared the boat so it was very fast, the trimmers and our whole team.

“I thank all my competitors, especially Igor Lah for his excellent match race in the last race, because any of our boats could have won the World Championship. Thank you to Christian (Zuerrer) and everyone who helped him make this fantastic event possible. You live in a beautiful, amazing place, but you are also very good people.”

Nic Asher added: “That was a hell of a lot of fun! We weren’t expecting so much wind but the conditions were fantastic. In the last race Black Star were only seven points behind so we had to be careful there. At one point on the first beat of the last race we were on the right with Ceeref and they were on the left and they tacked and I thought ‘They’re leading here…’ The first run was really tricky because Ceeref got in the way again but on the second beat we managed to send them the wrong way while sailing the right way and caught Black Star. It worked.”

Asher summed up the week: “It was nerve-racking… at no point in a race was it comfortable and you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen. One moment the right side is paying off and the next the left – that made it really tough.”

Despite the defeat, Team Ceeref Vaider showed a welcome return to form, noted Adrian Stead. “We haven’t sailed better as a team in a long time. Team Ceeref is back!”

Christian Zuerrer’s Black Star Sailing Team achieved a well-deserved third place in the overall ranking; they have achieved this for the third time.

Zuerrer was enthusiastic about the course of the event: “My goal was to have good races and to show that it is possible to have close races in Switzerland when the wind conditions are good: We sailed 11 races, the most races the class has achieved at an event this year. I am totally satisfied with that. And the fact that the first three boats are only two points apart shows how close the race is.

The 44Cup 2024 will conclude on November 21-24 on Nanny Cay, Tortola.

2024 44Cup World Championship Fountain: (after 11 races)

1. Team Nika – 2 1 8 2 2 3 8 2 5 2 7 – 42 points
2. Team CEEREF Vaider – 1 4 9 1 3 2 5 3 4 3 8 – 43 points
3. Black Star Sailing Team – 3 6 1 3 9 5 2 6 2 5 2 – 44 points
4. Aleph Racing – 7 2 4 4 6 7 1 1 8 4 5 – 49 points
5. Charisma – 6 3 3 6 5 9 3 5 6 1 4 – 51 points
6. Team Aqua – 5 9 5 8 8 4 6 4 3 6 1 – 59 points
7. Peninsula Racing – 4 7 6 7 1 6 4 7 7 8 3 – 60 points
8. Artemis Racing – 8 8 2 9 4 1 7 9 1 9 6 – 64 points
9. Calero Sailing Team – 9 5 7 5 7 8 9 8 9 7 9 – 83 points

2024 44Cup overall ranking: (after four events with one discarded result)

1. Team Nika – 1 2 7 1 – 4 points
2. Team CEEREF Vaider – 2 4 6 2 – 8 points
3. Artemis Racing – 8 1 2 8 – 11 points
4. Aleph Racing – 5 5 3 4 – 12 points
5. Charisma – 6 7 1 5 – 12 points
6. Black Star Sailing Team – 7 3 8 3 – 13 points
7. Team Aqua – 4 8 4 6 – 14 points
8. Peninsula Racing – 3 6 5 7 – 15 points
9. Calero Sailing Team – 9 9 10 9 – 27 points