44CUP
If some of the most successful crew in the America’s Cup and SailGP seems to have come from the Olympic 49er skiff, the 44 Cup seems to attract talent, both old and new, from the venerable Olympic doublehander, the 470.
A cursory glance through 44 Cup crew list reveals two Olympic 470 gold medallists – Jordi Calafat (Barcelona 1992) and Australian Will Ryan (gold Tokyo 2021, silver Rio 2016), now both trimming main, respectively on Peninsula Racing and Black Star Sailing Team. Calafat won the first of two 470 World Championship titles in 1992. On that occasion Aleph Racing’s tactician Michele Ivaldi finished second, en route to represented Italy at Atlanta 1996. Peninsula Racing’s tactician Vasco Vascotto also cut his teeth in the doublehanded dinghy as a youth sailor, while the Gibraltar team’s coach, Gustavo Martínez Doreste, twice represented Spain in the 470 (Sydney 2000; Athens 2004). Team Nika’s tactician Nic Asher was 470 World Champion in both 2006 and 2008. Among the 44Cup’s female contingent, Ceeref’s Tina Mrak was twice 470 European Champion en route to competing at Rio 2016, while Team Nika’s Federica Salva twice represented Italy in the 470 at the Games.
Since the 44Cup Calero Marinas, this group has been joined by Lanzarote’s own son Alfredo Gonzalez, tactician for Calero Sailing Team, who was represented Spain in Rio 2016.
Also racing with Daniel Calero’s Canary Islands team is Silvia Más. From a Barcelona-based family of hotly competitive sailors (her mother was Optimist World Champion in 1980 and also Spanish champion), Más went to Tokyo in 2021, but significantly won the last all-female 470 World Championship in 2021 with her crew Patricia Cantero.
Recently her place was confirmed within Sail Team BCN, Spain’s entry in this year’s Puig Woman’s America’s Cup, alongside with the likes of London 2012 Women’s Match Racing gold medallist and round the world sailor Támara Echegoyen. It also means she has time to race not only with Calero Sailing Team on the 2024 44Cup, but also with the Alegre team on the 52 Super Series. All this added and perhaps unscheduled experience bode well for her – by the time she resumes her Olympic campaigning, for Los Angeles 2028, she will be a much more rounded sailor.
44Cup Calero Marinas, the event that fired up the 2024 season for the high performance owner-driver one designs, was the first time Más had competed in on the 44Cup. For the slight 27-year-old, it was a baptism of fire in what was mostly a 20+ knot foam-up for the competitive RC44 fleet.
“It was amazing – a week of very strong breeze,” reminisces Más. “I saw the boat in extreme conditions, but it was a lot of fun. You need a lot of co-ordination between the crew and also to watch out for everything all the time. The boat is very fast and reactive, so a bit like a 470…but bigger! For me it was super nice to see and the fleet was so close in all the races – it was great.”
On board Calero Sailng Team she is the ‘floater’, a job with a multitude of various roles. “I am helping the main trimmer, grinder, putting up the spinnaker with the halyard and pulling it down with the retriever, handling ropes in the gybes and the electronics, like the navigator…
“For me it is amazing – a new world. I am used to little boats. It is a bit weird for me not helming or doing tactics, but it is super fun to see how it all works and how everyone gets into the same thing.”
It hasn’t just been the sailing too. Within the 44Cup there are some of sport’s most highly decorated sailors and teams such as Artemis Racing which have previously competed in the America’s Cup. Spending time in this environment has given Más the opportunity to catch glimpses of how professional sailing teams function, useful experience which she will soon be able to translate into her own America’s Cup environment, as the Spanish team revs up their campaign over the course of the summer.
While she has competed at the highest level in the Olympic Games, as a 470 sailor on the 44Cup she is also getting to meet many of her childhood heroes. “Many of the tacticians and crew in the RC44s used to sail 470 and were inspirations for me when I was growing up,” she admits. So she is very much in her element.
Daniel Calero and the Calero Sailing Team are returning to the 44Cup following their five year stint on the circuit over 2008-2013, but that was a long time ago and effectively they are having to start from scratch again with a new team. Más is very much enjoying the learning experience. “The manoeuvres have been difficult but the team is very happy. In Lanzarote we were getting better at the manoeuvres and in the starts. We had a few broaches, but they were okay.” For Más Lanzarote was also familiar territory having spent much time training there with her coach, Peninsula Petroleum’s Gustavo Martínez Doreste.
Alfredo Gonzalez, Daniel Calero and the Calero Sailing Team are once again due to be sailing the 44Cup’s ‘black boat’ next week in the 44Cup World Championships in Brunnen Switzerland.
