Team Jelik joins Malcesine RC 44 Cup fleet

3:54 PM Tue 7 Jul 2009 GMT

'RC 44 fleet (Puerto Calero Islas Canarias RC 44 Cup)' Nico Martinez / RC 44 Cup &copy

The fourth regatta of the RC 44 Championship Tour 2009 starts Wednesday on Lake Garda. The RC 44 fleet welcomes Frank Pong and his new Team Jelik, from Hong Kong.

Fifteen knots of wind, great sunshine and flat water: those are the conditions that the ten teams involved in the Malcesine RC 44 Cup hope to get this week. Lake Garda is situated about 65 metres above sea level between the Alps and the Po plain; it is the largest lake in Italy. The northern part of the lake is surrounded by mountainous peaks that create a funnel effect and generate the local winds - the Ora between midday and the early hours of the evening and the Vento between midnight and mid-morning.

Organised by Fraglia Vela di Malcesine, the regatta begins tomorrow with the match racing event. Winner of the last regatta and leader of the Championship Tour, Chris Bake's Team Aqua with Cameron Appleton at the helm is one of the favourites of the series, alongside Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Baker's Artemis and Larry Ellison / Russell Coutts' BMW ORACLE Racing, who won the match race event in Malcesine last year. Also to be reckoned with, Maciej Nawrocki and Karol Jablonski's team Organika, second of the match race event in Austria last month and Igor Lah / S?bastien Col's Ceeref.

The fleet regatta will take place from Friday 10 till Sunday 12. The long distance regatta - the DHL Trophy - will count for double; it will most probably take place on Saturday.

The ten RC 44's have been training hard over the past days. This morning, Frank Pong's Team Jelik, who join the Class for the first time, had a first 'lake trial' with 20+ knots of wind. 'Now I understand why everybody says that Lake Garda is such a fantastic place for sailing', said Pong. 'It was absolutely awesome.'

The teams involved:

(Name of team, owner, pro sailor)

Team Aqua, Chris Bake / Cameron Appleton
Team Ceeref, Igor Lah / S?bastien Col
Sea Dubai, Yousef Lahej, DIMC / Markus Wieser
BMW ORACLE Racing, Larry Ellison / Russell Coutts
Team Organika, Maciej Nawrocki / Karol Jablonski
Puerto Calero Islas Canarias, Daniel Calero / Jose Maria Ponce
Artemis, Torbjorn Tornqvist / Dean Barker
No Way Back, Pieter Heerema / Ray Davies
Team Austria, Ren? Mangold / Christian Binder
Team Jelik, Frank Pong / Adam Minoprio

The RC 44 Class' Official logistic supplier DHL announced this morning that it can provide first results based on its extensive climate protection program.

To date, it has been possible to compensate around 16 tons of CO2 whilst transporting the yachts between the various sailing spots. Approximately 36 tons of CO2 will be offset during the entire season. The RC 44 Championship Tour's co-operation with DHL, the leading logistics specialist, thus now also continues the environmentally friendliness of sailing on land.

www.rc44.com

by RC 44 Class media