The 44Cup signed off its 2025 season in a new corner of the Canary archipelago, with Marina Jandía on Fuerteventura delivering a finale that was anything but predictable. Across four days the lead changed hands repeatedly, the trade winds shifted from modest to muscular, and the black peaks of Jandía National Park watched over a regatta that finally crowned Sweden’s GeMera Racing as event winner and Monaco’s Team Nika as overall 44Cup champions.

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Practice and the opening day were a reminder that this new race course would not be given up easily. Early in the week a chilly northerly tumbled straight down off the mountains, unstable enough to keep tacticians honest. For day one the breeze swung into the north east and eased to seven to ten knots, only touching thirteen when a dark rain cloud marched across the course in the second race.

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Team Aqua made the first statement. Chris Bake’s crew threaded a narrow gap on the line in race one, hit full power immediately and converted that start into a wire-to-wire win. Artemis Racing replied in race two, finding a clean lane to the left and then controlling the fleet from the first mark. The day finished with a photo-finish classic: Aleph Racing, Aqua and Team Nika crossed the line almost bow to bow, the video replay eventually confirming Aleph ahead by barely a couple of metres. Aqua’s one, three, two was enough for the early lead, a point clear of Aleph, and Bake spoke of small crew changes and a refreshed dynamic finally shaking them out of a season of speed struggles.

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Fuerteventura then showed its teeth. On day two the northeasterly built towards twenty knots and a lumpy sea state rolled down the course. Owners were suddenly driving downhill at speeds close to the true wind, the RC44s surfing hard with spray pouring off the bows. Aleph picked up where she had left off, taking the first race after working two key shifts up the first beat to slip ahead of GeMera. Peninsula Racing pushed through to second, hinting at the depth in the fleet.

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The middle race belonged, briefly, to the newcomers from Wow! Sailing Team. They nailed the pin, crossed the fleet and rounded ahead, only to see Team Nika and Charisma roll through as the tactical pattern unfolded down the course. Nika then found another gear, winning the last two races of the day and reminding everyone why she has been the reference team of the modern 44Cup. By the end of the second day Aleph, GeMera and Nika were locked at the top, the first five boats split by only five points.

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If there was any temptation to call momentum, day three killed it. Once again the breeze sat in the mid to high teens and pushed past twenty knots in the gusts, while the sea state became more random and more punishing. Artemis Racing blasted hard left in the first race and never looked back, GeMera and Charisma rounding out a Scandinavian-led podium. In the second race Artemis was again in control until her spinnaker exploded just after the top mark. GeMera seized the opportunity, took the win and, despite later losing a kite of her own, sailed an intelligent recovery to fifth in the final race.

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That last race turned into a small epic. With Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team sidelined by rudder failure, nine boats fought their way around a course where one bad wave could erase a leg of work. Peninsula looked strong until a mistake at the start of the second beat opened the door for Team Nika, who edged clear and held off a late charge to beat Peninsula by seconds. Behind them Wow! Sailing Team scored a breakthrough fourth, their best result of the series, vindicating the steady improvement that tactician Iker Martínez has been preaching all week.

Local interest centred on Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team, representing the new Marina Jandía and the Calero family’s latest project in the islands. Starts showed real progress, but penalties and then the steering failure on day three dropped them out of contention. Tactician Alfredo González was philosophical, promising to attack the final races simply to finish the season with good sensations, while owner Daniel Calero described the venue as incredibly demanding and tactical and expressed his pride at closing the season here. For several days Fuerteventura genuinely became the capital of high-performance keelboat racing.

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By the time the final races were completed GeMera’s consistency had told. Marcus Törnqvist’s Swedish crew, who had spent much of the year quietly working on upwind pace with the J2, converted that speed into a complete result. Their 31-point tally put them comfortably clear of Team Nika on 45 and fellow Swedes Artemis Racing on 50, with Aleph Racing, Team Aqua and Peninsula Racing locked together on 58 in the chasing pack.

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In the larger story of the 2025 season, however, it was Nika’s week as well. Second in Marina Jandía was enough for Vladimir Prosikhin to seal the 44Cup title with a score of five points across the year, ahead of Aleph Racing on eleven and GeMera Racing on twelve. Artemis finished fourth overall, just in front of Team Charisma, with Ceeref Vaider, Aqua, Peninsula, Black Star, Lanzarote Calero, Wow! and Warp 5 completing a roster that underlines the depth of this owner-driver fleet.

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From the light, nervous opening day to the final surf down the Fuerteventura swell, Marina Jandía delivered a season finale that matched the backdrop: dramatic, unforgiving and, for GeMera and Nika, unforgettable.

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With Marina Jandía now behind them, the circuit shifts focus to the 2026 season. Racing resumes in Nanny Cay in February, where the fleet will swap Fuerteventura’s Atlantic swell for the lighter Caribbean trades — a venue that exposes any early-season weaknesses. In May the 44Cup returns to Porto Cervo, a course where narrow pressure lanes and sharp shifts traditionally separate genuine title contenders from the rest. The opening block ends in June in Marstrand, Sweden, a demanding arena that delivers some of the closest, most tactical racing of the year.

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What is already clear is that the fleet has never been more evenly matched. GeMera carries real momentum, Nika remains the standard under pressure, and teams like Aleph, Artemis, Charisma and Aqua have shown winning form. Even the newer entrants, like Wow! Sailing Team, are no longer outliers but true disruptors.

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The road to Nanny Cay is already underway — and the 2026 title fight promises to start from the very first gun.