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Andy Rice  //  As a full-time sailing journalist, I report on most of the sailing ‘Majors’, including the America’s Cup, the Olympic Games, the Volvo, and so on.

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May 16 / 11:57am

Kiwis blitz TP52 season opener

Tp52-cascais-2010

The current Audi MedCup champions proved they have lost nothing from their competitive edge as they both opened their respective 2010 season with resounding wins in the Portugal Trophy, Cascais.

After another day of muscular breezes which produced fantastic racing conditions off Sintra, just to the west of Cascais, Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL) and Puerto Calero (ESP) had both set up unassailable regatta leads, clinching their respective trophies with a race to spare.

Through the five events of the 2010 Audi MedCup season, regatta trophies are a bonus, and this is Emirates Team New Zealand’s fifth successive regatta title in a row, but the dominant Kiwi crew will be even more content to leave Portugal with a comprehensive lead of 20 points over Franco-German Circuit newcomers AudiA1 powered by All4ONE.

AudiA1 powered by All4ONE may have finished with a sixth in the final race of the regatta, but the team which is headed by four times Olympic Jochen Schuemann (GER), finished consistently in the top half of the fleet through the second half of the regatta to prove they have the talent and the tools to be podium contenders. It is Schuemann’s best podium finish on the Circuit, bettering his third in Puerto Portals in 2008 with Platoon Powered by Team Germany.

The tough conditions produced a typically bruising final day which placed big demands on crew work and equipment. Emirates Team New Zealand proved, once again, a cut above the rest in the breeze but there were gennakers shredded again today and several teams not managing to convert on the final day, due to mechanical or sail failures, whether or not they were the product of crewing errors.

The British America’s Cup crew lost their gennaker sheet under the boat during the first race to finish 10th. For some of the time today Ben Ainslie (GBR) and the TeamOrigin (GBR) crew looked like an truly exceptional unit, leading again during the first race of the day, but they still have a speed deficit downwind which needs rectifying.

Ainslie summed up the event for the team, "A tough day on the water but the overall result was a good one for our first regatta with limited preparation time. There is plenty of scope for improvement which is promising for the rest of the season."