Athens, Sunday, May 10th, 2015, 22:00.
This weekend, OPTIMUM Yacht Racing Team competed in the 2nd regatta of the 2015 season namely “6th Athens Trophy 2015” organized by the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club. Five inshore Windward/Leeward races were conducted varying between 6 to 8 nautical miles each one in length. Two on Saturday in light SSW winds up to 10-11 Knots and three on Sunday in strong northerly winds gusting up to 25 knots! OPTIMUM 3-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK posted 4, 9 on Saturday and 5, 3, 2 on Sunday and ended up in 6th place overall with 14 points, equal with yacht GANT in 5th place and only 5 points more from yacht MY WAY in 1st place. 5 points difference means that if Team OPTIMUM had finished just one place better in each one of the five races we would have been in 1st place. And if someone takes a look at the time deltas in each race, these varied between 9 and 50 seconds from the yacht ahead after about an hour of racing per race…!!! That’s great racing indeed!
“The guys were on fire this weekend and performed brilliantly. 6th place overall after 5 races with one discard (9th) may lead someone to think that we were out there enjoying the sun and clear skies of Athens, Greece. On Sunday, the strong wind conditions tested our melt and it was clear to all aboard that the crew were enjoying every bit of the action. We improved steadily in every race posting 5, 3, 2 for the day. The dog fight with our main rival BULLET TP52 kept us focused on driving the boat fast and smart. The score between Bullet vs Optimum for this regatta reads 1-4 and for the 2015 season after 10 races stands at 3-7. No less than five blocks in various rope handling systems terminated their life aboard OPTIMUM 3-ASPIDA-SAXOBANK on Sunday, an undeniable truth of how much strain goes on a carbon racing 52-footer in 25 knots of wind. Both skippers felt comfortable with the crew work and allowed the use of the A2 spinnaker downwind in conditions at or above the operating range, a move that most likely improved performance significantly. It is early stage yet but the team is coming well together pretty fast”, commented jib trimmer and Optimum team veteran Alexis Chrysochoides.
OPTIMUM 3 seems to win the branding competition among the Greek racing fleet this year too, by strongly presenting sponsors ASPIDA and SAXOBANK in the two tones of blue in a design made by crewman and expert marketer and designer Adonis Drillias. The crew line-up was very strong and included Alexandros Sofroniadis, Gary Gabri, George Hatzigeorgiou, Nikos Apostolakis, Alexis Chrysochoides, Kostas Makridis, Manolis Markogiannakis, George Kyragiannis, Gerasimos Petratos, Patroklos Tachtatzis, Lambros Nakis, Manos Roudas, Periklis Livas, Nikos Lazos and new recruit and welcome addition Stratis Tsamparlis in the under 30 category, in line with the continuous effort to lower the Optimum mean age value!
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