News

May 11, 2008

The brand new addition to the Mean Machine family is already warming up for this year’s Audi MedCup Circuit in Alicante following her hotly anticipated launch last week in Valencia. The team have one clear aim in their sights: to win the Med’s most important regatta circuit for a second time.

The challenge for De Ridder’s crew is going to be one they’ll have to sink their teeth right into, and there’s plenty of meat for them to work with: 60 races, among them windward-leeward and offshore races, with no discard this season… meaning consistency will be more important than ever in the recipe for success.

Turning the heat up even further the Circuit’s last three winners (Mean Machine 2006, Pisco Sour in 2005 and Swiss team Artemis in 2007) are all ready to cook up a storm in the Med with brand new boats with crew lists that read like an America’s Cup or Volvo Ocean Race ‘best-of’.

Mean Machine is testament the outstanding caliber of MedCup competitors with 50% of the crew from the America’s Cup Emirates Team New Zealand. Owner and Skipper Peter de Ridder has America’s Cup veteran and winner and Volvo Ocean Race winner Ray Davies on board as well as Team New Zealand’s Tom Dodson and the new Navigator Kevin Hall.

Everything’s set for the Audi MedCup 2008 Circuit to kick off tomorrow at midday in the Spanish port of Alicante with two windward-leeward races.
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TEAM QUOTES:



Peter de Ridder, Mean Machine Owner and Skipper:
This is a great boat to sail and it steers really well… but really any TP52 is a nice boat to sail and to steer because it’s very responsive and if you put the bow down it accelerates, lift it up you go slower… This boat in particular is a nice Vrolijk boat again and we’re all very happy with it. The boys did a huge job; some great work and we’re ready to race.

Ray Davies, Mean Machine Tactician: We are very excited to sail our new boat, it’s performing well, but we haven’t a really had a chance to line up with too many other boats yet; we’re still making sure it’s strong enough, checking all the systems work and so far it’s been really good, better than we expected and Reido has done a really great job. We have been looking at the other boats along the dock and a few boats have followed the same path that we have with the shape of the boat so it’s going to be really exciting MedCup this year with all these boats and teams around.