Good advertisement space for the sponsors at the ACI Match Race Cup in Croatia! Image copyright Ante Verzotti.
by David Swete
A very fresh offshore breeze was in force today and the race committee did an excellent job, managing to complete the second round robin, semi finals and finals. We definitely stepped our game up and got through the second round robin with only two losses, managing victories over Sébastien Col, Bertrand Pacé and Paolo Cian, but we were left rueing our poor form early on in the regatta and failed to progress through to the semi-finals, missing out by one race.
With the wind often gusting up over 25 knots, the race committee were forced to race us with a reef in the main and no spinnaker for the last two races. In our last must-win race of the day against Torvar Mirsky, the breeze was really up and the Perth team showed excellent form in these conditions to destroy our hopes of a semi-final berth. We trailed off the start line but clawed our way back into the race, only to receive a penalty for tacking too close to the young Australians. On the final upwind we gained the lead momentarily at the top mark but they rounded inside us and, with our outstanding penalty, it was game over.
The final was raced between defending Champion Paolo Cian and Match Racing legend Bertrand Pacé, in a battle between two fiery skippers who were eager win after a long day of racing. Pacé's trimmer had injured himself in the round robin so BlackMatch's Trimmer, Tom Powrie was called in and adapted very well to win through to the final. Unfortunately for the French team, even with an expert Kiwi trimmer onboard, Pacé lost the final 2-0 and Cian was crowned the 2008 ACI Match Champion.
BlackMatch would like to congratulate Paolo and his Shosholoza crew on a magnificent regatta. We would also like to thank our sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 who have stuck by us as we feel it is a great privilege to have the support of such world renowned companies.
BlackMatch Racing
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