St. Moritz Match Race - Day 2

by World Match Racing Tour 4 Sep 2009 00:16 BST 1-6 September 2009 Chief umpire Bill Edgerton took some time during this morning’s briefing to remind the teams that crashing boats is not necessary to secure a penalties against your opponent and that points would be deducted from a teams score if they were found to have caused damage. The skippers took heed, and Sébastien Col (FRA) commented that “these boats are very lively and manoeuvrable, which incites you to go for the contact and keep the pressure on your opponent. As a consequence, there were several light contacts yesterday and quite a few penalties.”

After a short delay for the weather to improve the Race Committee got racing under way just after lunchtime and benefited from a good breeze – although quite shifty and not as strong as yesterday – to complete eight flights. Altogether the twelve teams racing in St. Moritz Match race have finished 18 flights in two days out of the 22 required to complete the Round Robin.

Francesco Bruni (ITA), Joe Fly Match Race and Peter Gilmour (AUS), YANMAR Racing are the great winners of the day. The Italian sailor won all of the six matches he sailed today whilst Gilmour managed to win five. The Australian veteran demonstrated once again his impressive capacity to progress through the event after a rather disappointing first day.

At the other end of the leaderboard, Björn Hansen (SWE), Onboard Sailing Team suffered from a shocking day, loosing all of his matches whilst local favourite Eric Monnin (SUI), Swiss Match Race Team, finally managed to grab a point.

The French Match Racing Team sailors Mathieu Richard (FRA) and Philippe Presti (FRA) both managed to win a race whilst Sebastien Col (FRA) grabbed two precious points.

Arguably the leader of the Round Robin so far remains Ian Williams (GBR), unbeaten after two more victories this afternoon and with the ability to end the round without loss.

An unfortunate incident happened to Dan McLean, bowman onboard Team Joe Fly, who dislocated his shoulder when he fell overboard. The courageous sailor managed to knock his shoulder back into place and carried on racing as if nothing had happened.

They said :

Sébastien Col : “The conditions are typical of St. Moritz although the wind is lighter than yesterday. You need to be opportunistic and you must not try to understand everything or to anticipate. The only rule is to play with the wind in real time instead of trying to imagine what’s going to happen. It’s also good to remember that a race is never over until the finish line.”

Peter Gilmour : “I think that we were still lacking some practice on these boats yesterday. We needed one more day than the others to get comfortable with it. I haven’t sailed much recently and I needed this time to adapt. We were therefore not too frustrated at the end of the first day and the progress we’ve made today is satisfying. We very much enjoy sailing here in St. Moritz.”

Francesco Bruni : “I wasn’t expecting such a good result. I did notice that we were sailing very well yesterday, probably better than our results were showing. My feeling is therefore very positive. Today we won against the best teams and I am very pleased with this. Rod Davis does a great job and the team works very well; It is a real pleasure when things go that well.”

Provisional results after 18 flights:

Name of the skipper, Nationality, Number of victories / losses:
Francesco Bruni, ITA, Team Joe Fly Match Race; 8/3
Ian Williams, GBR, Team Pindar; 7/0 (-0,5 point penalty)
Peter Gilmour, AUS, YANMAR Racing; 6/5
Philippe Presti, FRA, French Match Racing Team; 5/3
Sébastien Col, FRA, French Match Racing Team; 5/3
Torvar Mirsky, AUS, Mirsky Racing Team; 5/2
Adam Minoprio, NZL, ETNZ/BlackMatch; 4/2 (-1 point penalty)
Matthieu Richard, FRA, French Match Racing Team; 4/4
Alvaro Marinho, POR, Seth Sailing Team; 3/7
Johnie Berntsson, SWE, Berntsson Sailing Team; 3/7
Björn Hansen, SWE, Onboard Sailing Team; 2/8
Éric Monnin, SUI, Swiss Match Race Team; 1/9

Team Pindar

Ian Williams and his Team Pindar crew have got off to a strong start at the St Moritz Match Race in Switzerland. The team remain undefeated in the round robin stages, scoring 6.5 from a possible 7 points, with 4 flights remaining.

The event began yesterday in perfect sailing conditions, with the local Maloja wind blowing a consistent 15-20 knots, enabling organisers to complete the first 10 flights. Williams and crew dominated all five of their races, securing maximum points but were later penalised half a point, following a collision in the first race with Bruni.

Today conditions were very different. Lack of breeze and rain this morning resulted in the day’s racing being postponed until the afternoon. Winning his only race of the day against Marinho, Williams now has 6.5 points, which places him in second place, after Bruni who has won 7 of his 10 races.

Speaking from the event, Williams commented: "Things are going well and we're delighted not to have lost any races yet. Conditions today were certainly a lot more challenging than yesterday with some big holes and unpredictable wind shifts. We’ve got some tough matches tomorrow but will be pushing hard for the top spot, which carries a great incentive of advancing straight to the semi-finals.”

The sixth of nine events on the 2009 World Match Racing Tour, St Moritz Match Race has attracted eight of the world's top 10 match racers, each competing for a share of the CHF100,000 prize purse.

Set at over 5,000 feet above sea level on Lake St Moritz, against the spectacular backdrop of the Swiss Alps, 12 teams are competing in Blu26 one-design sailing boats.

The action continues tomorrow with the closing round robin flights and the start of the quarter-finals.

Mirsky Racing Team

MRT managed to have a relaxing morning as they did not have to race until the afternoon, making full use of the the Badrutt's Palace five star pool and spa.

The morning off also gave MRT time to watch their opponents battle in the shifty conditions where Bahrain Team Pindar hit their stride to show why they are the reigning world champions with an undefeated record.

"The conditions out there vary so much and there isn't really a trend with the shifts, we are doing a bit of 'freestyling' which is a bit different because we can usually plan our strategy in advance, here we have to take it as it comes, but its working out nicely for us" commented MRT trimmer Kinley Fowler after racing.

BlackMatch

After sitting out 6 matches today we were only involved in 2 races in which we were able to take victories over Sweden’s Johnnie Berntsson and Alvaro Marinho from Portugal. After a terrible opening day it was great to turn things around and notch up a few more wins to keep us very much in contention for a quarterfinal berth.

Our race against Johnnie Berntsson didn’t go entirely to plan and we received a penalty in the pre-start after yet another collision, however Adam did a great job of equalising when we forced a penalty on them on the final approach to the start line. The race was an extremely close affair after both teams were even off the start line and it wasn’t until a wind shift went our way on the final upwind that we were able to gain the lead and defend well for the victory.

Now with a record of 4 wins, 3 losses and a point deducted for yesterday’s incident with Francesco Bruni, we are confident we can kick on from here and get the wins needed to make the quarterfinals. In our four remaining matches against Sebastian Col, Mathieu Richard, Philippe Presti and Eric Monin it looks like we will have to win at least 3 out of 4 to secure our place in the next round.