The final event of the 2026 44Cup sets sail from Cartagena in the Murcia region of southern Spain.

This is occurring thanks to the generous support of the Ayuntamiento de Cartagena, Gobierno Región de Murcia and the Autoridad Portuaria de Cartagena.

With the season about to conclude, the owner-driver one design teams are now paying close attention to the overall 2026 season results. At present topping this leaderboard are two teams in close contention: Hugues Lepic’s Aleph Racing, being steered this year by Pietro Loro Piana, and Markus Törnqvist’s GeMera Racing. Both have scored just 10 points this season – GeMera Racing impressively with no result off the podium. But with one discard applied, Aleph Racing leads by a slender one point – on six to GeMera Racing’s seven.

As an indication of the 44Cup’s continued high competition and how vital it is to be consistent – of these two teams, only one has won an event this year: Aleph Racing scoring her first ever RC44 World Championship victory, in Cowes at the end of September. Beforehand John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing won the 44Cup Calero Marina in Lanzarote, followed by Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika in Puntaldia in Sardinia and Team Charisma making a comeback to claim Marstrand.

2026 44Cup © Nico Martinez / 44Cup

Still looking threatening are the old hands on Team Nika and Team Aqua, tied on 10 points overall (but both holding significant discards). They have both won the 44Cup many times previously – most recently Team Nika in 2024-25 and Team Aqua in 2021 – whereas for both Aleph Racing and GeMera Racing it would be their first time.

While a French team, on Aleph Racing there is a strong Italian contingent, including helm Pietro Loro Piana and tactician Michele Ivaldi, Italian sailors being notoriously superstitious about contemplating possible outcomes. “I am a bit superstitious,” admits Loro Piana, who this week also has more pleasurable things with which to concern himself having taken the lead of the 44Cup and with that the ‘golden wheels’ (the 44Cup’s equivalent of the Tour de France’s yellow jersey) being fitted to the Aleph Racing RC44. “The pressure of having the golden wheels – obviously that’s there. I’m quite curious to see how they look, but I’m not going to look at them because that’s going to give me more pressure and we’re here to have fun and learn how to sail as well as possible.”

Loro Piana is pleased to be in Cartagena. “Spain has always been very kind to us Italians. It looks amazing. The harbour and the size of the boats in this harbour are astonishing. I know about the history of this place – birthplace of the submarine, etc. I’m very happy to be here. The coastline looks beautiful.”

Aleph Racing and Wow Sailing Team – photo © Nico Martinez / 44Cup

At present immediate concerns are over Storm Charles which at the time of writing was bludgeoning Portugal and western Spain and is due to past over Cartagena tonight, bringing gale force winds.

GeMera Racing tactician Francesco Bruni, recently announced as a helmsman for Tudor Team Alinghi, the Swiss team for next year’s America’s Cup shared his thoughts: “Tomorrow is going to be tricky for all of us – for the race committee and the sailors and the sailing teams, because there is a big storm coming overnight, which is going to bring a lot of waves. If we do race tomorrow, it’s going to be epic! Big sea, and potentially medium wind. Then the forecast is for a bit of a drop, but always enough to race.”

Team Nika’s tactician Nic Asher added: “We’ve got a storm coming. Tonight it’s going to be windy and then tomorrow we’ll see how windy it is, but the wave state looks big and it might be that which stops us. Yesterday we had really good wind – it was pulsing in and out from the shore coming in and going out again between a gap in the hills. We had everything from 8 knots to 20 knots. The big thing here is the sea state – you get the swell with the chop and then that rebounds off the shore.”

44Cup Calero Marinas – photo © Nico Martinez / 44Cup

The nearest to a local team taking part here is John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing from Gibraltar, although his crew is largely Spanish. Of them the team’s floater and sole female Julia Miñana Delhom comes from Jávea, close to Alicante, some 100 miles away. “I raced in Cartagena 10 years ago when I was sailing in Optimists and 420s. I remember they were crazy days, because there was a lot of wind, waves, and we were super near the coast. It was crazy, but I enjoyed it a lot.”

Obviously on board there is a desire to perform well in what is a ‘home’ event. “But,” she maintains: “We are always trying to push everything. It is the last of the season, so a lot of points to count and we want to end in a good way.”

Of what lies ahead PRO Maria Torrijo holds the best perspective, she too being something of a local, heralding from Alicante. “The issue is that it’s going to be very, very windy tonight because we have the alert of gales, so more than 35 knots. What it may affect tomorrow is going to be the sea state – we will have very big waves, but I think the wind will be okay for racing.”

In theory racing will start at 1200 tomorrow.

 

by 44Cup