The Bosphorus Cup Day 1: Aiolos crosses first but Rossko Racer takes early victory
by Quinag 20 Sep 16:04 PDT
19-22 September 2024
The Bosphorus Cup 2024 © Osman Ugur
The Volvo Ocean 70 Aiolos set a fearsome pace on day one of the Bosphorus Cup 2024 to score line honours in the opening races.
Greek businessman George Procopiou was helming his ocean-going 70-footer to great effect, aided by an international crew that includes Greece's most recent Olympic medallists, Pavlos Kagialis and Panagiotis Mantis.
Early off the start line, another mighty Greek boat, Stratis Andreatis' 86-footer Meliti made an excellent start out of the committee boat end of the line to move into clear air ahead of the rest of the 96-boat pack. Considering this was on a black flag start after principal race officer Nino Shmueli had recalled the over-eager fleet on the previous start, it was a brave move by Meliti to take a front-row seat in among the smaller boats.
Meliti's waterline length delivered great speed on the upwind legs in the 14-knot breeze. However on the downwind legs Serhat Altay's Judel/Vrolijk designed TP52, Arkas Blue Moon, was getting on to the plane and flying along towards the bottom of the course, overtaking Meliti.
In past years Yildirim Kaymaz's Farr 55, Orient Express 6, would have been the biggest boat on the water. While it doesn't match the scale of Meliti, the Turkish boat was still moving across the Sea of Marmara at a good pace and was up in the top few places.
However, on corrected time the story was very different. Initially it looked like the strong pack of 40-footers - including a competitive group of Farr 40s and Catalin Trandafir's Soto 40 Essentia - might steal the limelight from the bigger boats on the two-lap windward-leeward course.
While some of the 40-footers certainly did well on handicap, it was the smaller boats that took the top spots. Timofey Zhbankov's JPK 11.80 Rossko Racer won by 31 seconds from Selim Kakish's Archambault 35 Nissan Zacapa. Just one second back in third place was Güney Kaptan's J/111 Akpa Chemicals II.
In the long-distance race which took place in the hours before a stunning sunset, Aiolos was again well on the way to a line-honours finish ahead of the fleet, with the rest of the result yet to be determined.
After today's opening rounds on the open seas of Caddebostan, Saturday's challenge is the most spectacular and an entirely different kind of race. Starting at midday is the Bosphorus Race, when the sailors take on the mighty Strait that cuts Istanbul in two. It's a race track spanned by three spectacular suspension bridges and numerous ancient monuments and modern hotels along both the European and Asian shores.
With good moderate breeze on the forecast, the Theater of Winds should provide an exhilarating race track for the competitors and a stunning spectacle for the thousands of Istanbul residents and tourists who come to enjoy weekend life on the shores of Istanbul.