BlackMatch Report on their continuing Success in St Moritz

Minoprio rolls Wibroe in their first quarterfinal race. Image copyright Loris von Siebenthal/www.myimage.ch

by David Swete

Day 3 of racing in St Moritz saw us again involved in very little of the action on the water. Having already qualified for the quarterfinals we waited in anticipation for the repechage series to draw to an end and find out who we were to face in the next stage of the event.

The repechage series produced some exciting racing with some big names of match racing failing to qualify for the final 8. The 2 teams to go through were Peter Wibroe and French America's Cup Helmsman Philippe Presti, with names like Bjorn Hansen, Paolo Cian and Torvar Mirsky missing out.

Peter qualified top of the repecharge so it was decided that we would race him in the best of 3 quarterfinal. During the interlude between the repechage and quarterfinal we were involved in several VIP fleet races amongst all of the competing teams.

Although these VIP races did not count towards the match racing, we won both of ours convincingly which not only meant we each won a new pair of Kaenon sunglasses, but it also put us in good readiness for our upcoming showdown with the talented Danish team.

The quarterfinals didn't get underway until late in the evening and there was only time to complete one race which we won in a very tight battle to put us only one win away from making the semi-finals.

We started with a split tack against Peter and we lead out to the right hand side of the course which we thought was favoured. Our first cross saw us in front, but the Danes had now won the right hand side and when we came back together they held a slim lead going into the first downwind.

We stayed in touch with them and were hot on their tail going into the run to the finish, an excellent spinnaker set and superior crew work saw us regain our lead and roll them to windward. Peter luffed us hard in a defensive move but we responded and were able to hold our lead to take a narrow victory.

Only one win away from making the semi final and we are feeling confident we can bring it home tomorrow, but we remain very cautious as we are racing a very respectable competitor.

We would again like to acknowledge our long term sponsors FedEx Express and Ross Munro from Line 7, their ongoing support is making it possible for us to be over here in our long-term quest to win the World Match Racing Tour. To the RNZYS and everyone else, thank you for your support.

BlackMatch Racing