Impressive Win For Andrew Alcantara and Reena Virdi In Zoe

Jubilee 1 – Sponsored by Beck’s Beer
The 2025 Kings Cup got underway last Thursday with 8 boats taking to the water in fresh moderate westerly winds on a course between Western Beach and the RAF marker buoy in the Bay of Gibraltar.
The start line set by the Race Officer’s line was perfect and this was highlighted by the fact that several boats at different points along the line all managed to get good starts.
After the start, with the fleet bunched together, it was necessary to find clear wind as soon as possible. Andromeda (Micko Sheppard Capurro), Emendek (John Bassadone) and Flash (Michael Double) continued towards the South Side of the course while Nemesis (Charles Lavarello), Fencer (Nick Cruz deputising for the absent Hamish Risso), Fairdawn (Charlie Stagnetto), Zoe (Andrew Alcantara) and Temptress (Monty Spindler) all chose to try their luck on the North side of the course. As the fleet headed west towards the RAF mark it remained unclear what was the favourable side with the fleet looking like they would all converge at the same time at the first mark.
As the boats arrived together at the RAF mark, it was Andromeda that managed to round first with Fairdawn and Emendek hot on their heels. As the fleet rounded the mark it was clear that only two boats, Fencer and Zoe, had set their Spinnakers on the starboard side and planned to immediately gybe on rounding and take a more northerly route back to Western Beach. This was a smart move as the north side proved advantageous on the downwind sail towards Western Beach and these boats were able to make up ground on their rivals.
Despite being at a disadvantage of being only two up, Andrew with his star crew, Reena Virdi (awarded best newcomer for 2024) and her beautiful spinnaker work, were able to climb up to 3rd place on the first downwind leg and rounded the 2nd mark just behind Fencer and Nemesis. However, as Fencer and Nemesis went round the 2nd mark, their took it slightly wide and a better rounding by Zoe brought her side by side to the two leading boats.
As the boats headed back to RAF, Zoe managed to overhaul the two leading boats after a couple of tacks and build a small lead on her rivals. Behind them, the fleet was closely fighting for ever changing positions with 5 boats fighting for 4th place.
At the second rounding of the RAF Zoe led with Fairdawn and Temptress closely behind followed by the fleet. At this point both Fencer and Nemesis had lost their earlier advantage and were struggling to reclaim their earlier positions at the front of the fleet.
On the second, and last, downwind run back towards Western Beach, Zoe managed to maintain her lead with Fairdawn a comfortable distance behind in 2nd.
All that remained now was the last beat to the finish line which had been set in line with the end of the North Mole. On this beat, Zoe covered Fairdawn magnificently and so when Charlie Stagnetto realised that there was no way to pass Zoe, he turned his attention to protecting his second place finishing 6 seconds behind the winner with Temptress just seconds behind in 3rd place.
To emphasise the close nature of this racing, the first 5 boats all finishing within a minute of each other after an hour’s sailing and the average gap between boats throughout the whole fleets was only 12 seconds – making this one of the closely fought races ever.
The closeness of this race hopefully sets the scene for the rest of this season but there is no doubt that in this first Kings Cup race of 2025 Andrew Alcantara and Reena Virdi in Zoe had managed to achieve a well-deserved and impressive win.

Jubilee 1 results
1. Andrew Alcantara in Zoe (Crew - Reena Virdi)
2. Charlie Stagnetto in Fairdawn (Crew - Phil Moyes & Miro Kunes)
3. Monty Spindler in Temptress (Crew – Chris Keightley-Pugh & Tom Hillman)
The next two races of the 2025 Kings Cup will be raced next Saturday, and it will be interesting to see whether Andrew can produce another great result or whether the other boats can strike back in what is proving to be a very competitive field.

Wooden Spoon & HMS Calpe Trophy
A week earlier, the “Tuning Up Race” - Wooden Spoon had been raced. This is a handicap race where boats are sent off depending on their finishing position in the previous year’s championship and the idea is that the faster boats start last and try to catch the theoretically slower boats that have set off earlier.
Three boats were given an advantage and one of those being Zoe - with Reena Virdi helming and Andrew Alcantara an Elise Horne as crew.
Reena managed to hold on to the lead finishing first to win the Wooden Spoon.
John Bassadone on Emendek managed to make up time on the leading boat but it wasn’t quite enough to catch them ahead of the finishing line. However, as the winning boat of the last group of starters, he still claimed the HMS Calpe Trophy to take his first trophy of the season.