Nico Poons’ Charisma won the 44Cup Marstrand in 2023 and has been 44Cup champion for the last two season. But some changes in personnel and two deep results in Porto Calero, Lanzarote at the beginning of the year and then in Baiona, Spain last month had dumped the Dutchman’s team at the bottom of the leaderboard. Yet over the last four days of the 44Cup Marstrand, despite racing in very mixed conditions, Charisma has bounced back to her previous form.
Charisma went into the final day topping the leaderboard, albeit only two points ahead of Hugues Lepic’s Aleph Racing . Winning today’s first race as Aleph Racing scored an uncharacteristic seventh, which the French team followed with an OCS and a second deep result, helped Poons, tactician Andy Horton, Chris Hosking (main trim), Ross Halcrow (headsail trim), Dimitri Simmons (offshore trim), Ryan Godfrey (pit), Robin Jacobs (grinder), Arancia Malaspina (floater) and Ivan Peute (bowman) win the 44Cup Marstrand with a race to spare – a rare phenomenon in this ultra-tight class. “We’ve had two bad results after changing the team at the start of the year,” commented a delighted Poons.
“We have reinvented ourselves – and there is still some room for improvement - but I think we are back.” Poons and the other 44Cup teams thanked the Marstrands Segelsällskap for running racing for them and for Torbjörn Törnqvist and Artemis Technologies for supporting the event and an exceptional Midsummer’s Eve party in M.