Coastal Race leader from buoy 1 Matador and 2nd/3rd ETNZ and Audi Q8 sail very good race till in tight reach to final turning mark. They decide to stay high on jibs and see Artemis and others making good gains by opting for A-sails and a lower course.

Artemis flies into a handsome 45 seconds lead at the last mark before the finish, ETNZ corrects in time by a sail and course change to keep second place, Matador loose one and half minute on this reach, but still third, Quantum in fourth, Bigamist 5th and Audi Q8 loosing the most back in 6th.

Beat to the finish in the harbour entrance along a sunbathing tourist filled coastline.

Overall lead of Portimao Trophy now with Artemis. Can they hang on to it this time? Will be a long hot weekend for them.

Artemis 1st
ETNZ 2nd
Matador 3rd
Quantum 4th
Bigamist 5th

Overall
1 Artemis   16.5 points
2 ETNZ      18 points
3 Quantum 23 points

Guilermo Parada (ARG) skipper-helm Matador (ARG):
“ We’ve been first till the fifth mark and then we had two sail choices and we chose the one we thought was better. Emirates were behind us and they chose the same as us so every thing was ok. But Artemis chose the other one and it payed off. Artemis passed us and when we changed from one sail to the other. Emirates made a better change and passed us. That’s what happened. We thought the wind was going to shift to one side, and it went to the other way.”

Ray Davies (NZL), tactician Emirates Team New Zealand (NZL):
“ On the reach Matador and us chose to go to code zeros and Artemis went for the H3 (reaching gennaker) and they got separation and they were a little bit faster with that. We and matador hold on but Matador rounded in the outside of us so that’s where things changed.”