Athena Pathway wins Race 5 in Sardinia as leaders stall in dying breeze

Hannah Mills and Ellie Aldridge steered Athena Pathway to victory in Race 5 of the Sardinian preliminary round, threading through dying, inconsistent breeze while rivals dropped off their foils across every part of the course. Wind speeds hovered between seven and ten knots, a leftover chop from the previous day's racing complicated every transition, and sudden pressure vacuums made clean manoeuvring close to a lottery. Coming off a day that had included a capsize and a restart, the result carried genuine significance for the British women and youth squad.

The French coach had already framed the challenge plainly for broadcasters before racing began, putting the odds of completing any manoeuvre successfully in these conditions at around 50-50. The race that followed bore out his assessment completely.

Shortening signals came four times as the breeze kept easing. The most treacherous section of the course was the bottom right corner, where pressure holes would strip the foils of lift mid-leg and leave boats wallowing on the water. The rebuilt sea state from Day 1 made an already technical picture even harder to manage.

La Roche-Posay made the best of the start, with Delapierre and the French crew escaping cleanly to the left, finding open air from the gun and pressing forward with purpose. Luna Rossa Women and Youth also got away tidily, with Margherita Porro and Marco Gradoni working space on the right and quickly establishing clear wind. Tudor Team Alinghi endured a far messier beginning, fouling the Emirates Team New Zealand Women and Youth boat on the start line, collecting a penalty, and leaving Erica Dawson and Jake Pye's crew to fight back from an early disadvantage.

La Roche-Posay ran at the front through the opening legs, keeping the boat flying and picking careful lines through the patchiest sections of the course. Luna Rossa Women and Youth broke that hold around the halfway mark, finding a shift on the right side and pushing through to lead. For a crew performing with such consistency across this Sardinian event, the move had begun to look like a signature.

Then the bottom right corner lived up to its reputation. La Roche-Posay hit the vacuum first, dropped off the foils, and slowed sharply. Luna Rossa Women and Youth followed moments later, the pressure disappearing from beneath them as well. Both teams lost momentum while the boats still carrying speed behind them kept moving.

Athena Pathway had been doing the methodical work throughout. Co-helms Mills and Aldridge read the light patches accurately, timed their manoeuvres at speed, and held the boat on the foils when others around them could not. When both leaders stalled, Athena Pathway was already moving past them.

The shortened final lap passed without incident. Mills counted down the final gate herself, and Athena Pathway crossed the line first.

Tudor Team Alinghi did not finish the race. A dying patch removed the foils' righting moment and the boat capsized. With one race remaining, it was the kind of moment that could prove expensive for the Swiss team.

Luna Rossa Women and Youth gathered themselves after their splashdown and pressed hard at the finish, driving aggressively on the approach to edge out La Roche-Posay by half a metre at the gun. The French crew then collected a penalty on top of the narrow defeat.

Mills spoke after racing with a composure that only thinly covered how much the result meant. The shifting, dying breeze and rough sea state had tested Athena Pathway throughout, and the boat had come through it without incident. Given the difficulties of the previous day and the need to close the gap on the scoreboard, the win was anything but routine.

Tudor Team Alinghi's capsize and retirement, combined with GB1 again watching from the dock, shaped the conclusion of Race 5 as much as the result itself. The top four positions in the overall standings remain unchanged from where they sat after Race 4, though the points margins between teams are continuing to grow. There is still racing to come, and those gaps are not yet settled.

Luna Rossa Women and Youth have been one of the defining stories of the event. Seven points now separate them from the leading Emirates Team New Zealand, and that gap is widening with each race.