MEAN MACHINE VALLE ROMANO PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS IN THE FINAL RACE

Peter de Ridder’s team finish a somewhat inconsistent King’s Cup by taking a well-deserved victory in the final race.

Victory in the Camper Audi King’s Cup goes to Guillermo Parada’s Siemens, followed by Italian Vasco Vascotto’s Mutua Madrileña and Robinson’s Stay Calm.
Mean Machine Valle Romano finish in ninth place.

The Mediterranean’s showpiece regatta is over. The Camper Audi King’s Cup is the third event in the TP 52 Breitling Medcup Circuit this year, and the results from the ten races will have a big impact on who takes the prestigious Breitling Medcup trophy this season.

Mean Machine didn’t manage to capture that elusive victory they were hoping for in this regatta, and it remains a gap yet to fill on their impressive list of victories. Despite some inconsistent results, the boat with the black hull, skippered by Peter de Ridder and sponsored by the Valle Romano golf resort, managed to bring this regatta to a close with a storming victory, sealed just after the start of the race.

The overall win finally went to Siemens, with Mutua Madrilena in second place following a fierce battle. It was a truly heart-stopping finale with seven boats with the chance of victory at their grasp. This regatta has been another chance to witness the extremely close competition in this class, and some outstanding performances from the world’s very best sailors.

Things weren’t easy for Mean machine Valle Romano. The newest models out there are working at 100% of their capacity and they’ve definitely pushed the mark up for all the boats on the start line. De Ridder’s crew, sponsored by the Spanish Golf Resort of Valle Romano, suffered the blow of superior speeds from boats such as Siemens, Mutua Madrileña, Caixa Galicia and Artemis for example.

The impressive speeds reached last year by the black hulled and pink flamed boat weren’t enough to fend off the competition in this event, which marks the halfway point of this year’s Breitling Medcup Circuit.

Despite excellent work from the team’s trimmers, Dirk de Ridder, Jon Gundersen, Jono Swain, tactician Ray Davies, strategist Tom Dodson as well as the team’s skipper Peter de Ridder, the team lost some speed close hauling due to mistakes made at the start line.

Mean Machine founder and skipper Peter de Ridder was philosophical about the team’s results: “Finishing the Regatta with a win is starting to be somewhat of a routine for us! We did it in Alicante and Puerto Portals and now here in the Copa del Rey (King’s Cup). I’m quite happy because we have had a difficult week; the results haven’t really been that splendid. You can really see that the new boats are getting up to speed – they have quite an edge ‘speed-wise’, which really makes it quite difficult for us. Today we were really helped out by the shift we went for, and that sealed the victory on the lead we had.

If you look at the results here the top of the classification table taken up with almost all the new boats and you can really see on the water as well that they can sail that bit faster upwind. Downwind there is no speed difference, and I’d say we’re about the same, or even a bit better than they are but you make the gains generally upwind and not downwind.”

De Ridder added:
“Looking forward we are working hard on trying to get our boat to pick up a bit more speed, and we’ve been doing some work on the jib systems and that kind of thing, to see if we can get a little more pointing out of our boat with the speed. That’s about all we can do for now otherwise we’re only face with moving on to a new generation boat.”



Copa del Rey Camper Audi. TP52



1 SIEMENS GUILLERMO PARADA 3, 1, 2, 3,5, 7, 18, 3, 5, 3,555.00

2 MUTUA MADRILEÑA VASCO VASCOTTO 1, 2, 1, 8,10,6,1,8, 12,6, 6 = 61.00

3 CxG CORPORACION.CAIXA GALICIA ROBERTO BERMUDEZ 2, 13, 8, 4,6, 3, 8, 6, 7, 2, 13= 73.00

4 PATCHES IAN WALKER5, 12, 17,6,15,4,2, 4, 3, 7, 2w

5 ARTEMIS TORBJORN TORQNVIST 11, 9, 5,1,1, 10, 13,2, 9, 11, 7= 79.00

6 BRIBON S.M.JUAN CARLOS DE BORBON 9, 3, 9, 5, 4, 2, 9,11, 2, 23, 4 ‚.00

7 STAY CALM STUART ROBINSON 7, 6¸6,3, 12, 61, 1, 25, 9 =.83.00

8 PLATOON HARM MULLER 4, 4, 3,18,10, 5, 38,14, 5, 14= 88.00

9 VALLE ROMANO-MEAN MACHINE PETER DE RIDDER 6, 11, 4,19, 7,13,12, 7, 6, 12, 1= 98.00

10 BALEARIA GONZALO ARAUJO 8, 17, 11, 15, 15, 2, 1, 4,12, 17,10, 129


For more info about Mean Machine contact to: Helena de la Gándara. Mean Machine PR mail: helena@mean-machine.nl Telephone: +34 609481394 TO DOWNLOAD HI-RES PHOTOS FREE FOR EDITORIAL USE GO TO: http://www.nicomartinez.com/especiales.asp?id_especial Photos: FREE USE FOR EDITORIAL PURPOSES. NICO MARTINEZ/MEAN MACHINE For those interested in obtaining interviews, footage by FTP, or more photos regarding Mean Machine team or crew members please contact with us at: helena@mean-machine.nl More news and photos at: www. mean-machine.nl Sponsor website: www.valleromano.net --