Magnus Olsson and Loic Peyron aboard Nokia are now lying in second place overall in the Oops Cup series
Magnus Olsson and Loic Peyron picked the right side of the last island up the Oslofjord and managed to pass Bruno Peyron and Roger Nilson on Stena Sovcomflot a few nautical miles before the finish line of the Union Offshore Race yesterday. All the way up along the Swedish and Norwegian coast the three leading trimarans where in shouting distance from each other.
The six trimarans left Gothenburg on Monday at 2000 hours local time, and after a short reach out to Vinga Lighthouse, the crew started the fight against 20-30 knots of northerly wind up to Oslo. Team Academy and skipper Knut Frostad where among the first boats round Vinga, but shortly after the halyard block for the staysail broke. Academy had to seek calmer waters along the coast to give the guy up the mast a chance to replace the broken block.
TietoEnator with Thomas Johanson on the helm had the same problem, but they also got two holes in their main as the lashing from the staysail broke and came swinging back. That ended the race for the Finnish team as they are now limping towards the finish line in Oslo.
The three boats in the lead, HiQ, Stena Sovcomflot and Nokia, had a tight race all the way to the end Monday morning. All the three boats had different sailing configuration all the night and as the wind increased HiQ in to the morning hours, HiQ finally had to put in a reef. That gave Stena Sovcomflot and Nokia the little edge they needed to put some distance between them and the Swedish team.
The crew on Stena Sovcomflot felt pretty confident that they had their third win in the bag. But with Team Nokia a few hundred metres behind they weren’t able to cover them any more in between all the islands, and ended up on each side of one. Magnus Olsson had picked the right side and came out in front of the Russian-Swedish team.
Next race for the crews in Nokia Oops Cup is Speed Race tomorrow (Thursday), and the Helly Hansen Færder Race kicks off on Friday.
Results (Union Offshore Race)
1. Team Nokia
2. Stena Sovcomflot
3. HiQ Sailing Team
4. Team Academy
5. Bonduelle
6. TietoEnator
Overall Results (3 out of 11 races)
1. Stena Sovcomflot 2,5 points
2. Nokia 6,5 p
3. Academy 8 p
4. HiQ 8,5 p
5. Bonduelle 12,5 p
6. TietoEnator 14 p