Ian Williams and the winning Team Pindar at the Danish Open 2008. Image copyright Per Heegaard.
by David Swete, BlackMatch Racing
On completion of the round robin we missed out on the semi-finals very narrowly by one point. With 3 teams guaranteed semi-final positions, there was a 5-way tie for the final position and we were left rueing our earlier losses against the top ranked teams as this is how the tie break was decided.
BlackMatch, Mirsky, Wibroe, Richard and Holmberg were locked on 6 wins – 5 losses, and although we had convincingly beaten Mirsky in our race against him he had beaten two of the teams who had qualified already, so he was handed the final spot in the semi-final, after we were initially given the spot.
It was a double blow for us as the way the cookie crumbled we didn't even get the opportunity to race for 5th place and were left the unenviable task of racing veteran Magnus Holmberg for 7th.
We managed to defeat Magnus 2-1 in our race off for 7th position and had some awesome racing against him which was a positive way to end a heart breaking week.
We take solace from the fact that last years finalists did not qualify and also the world #1 Mathieu Richard, it shows how tough the racing here was and we are looking forward to the upcoming World Tour Event on St Moritzersee in Switzerland next week.
A special thank you to our sponsors, FedEx Express and Ross Munro from Line 7, with their ongoing support we have able to promote BlackMatch to #8 in the world and be over here competing with the worlds best. To the RNZYS and everyone else thank you for your support.
From SailRaceWin: In the third match (in easterlies on Sunday) against Holmberg, Minoprio and the BlackMatch team sailed higher (partly thanks to being gradually lifted) and faster than Holmberg up the first leg. However, Holmberg got the inside berth at the windward mark, so squeezed ahead.
A gybing duel towards the end of the run saw the BlackMatch boys get inside at the leeward mark. They were again able to climb out slightly on the Victory Challenge team, maintain the starboard advantage and prevent Holmberg from tacking up the second windward leg (which was, again, a one tack affair). This meant that they led Holmberg in to the top mark, and maintained their lead down the final leg for a 15 second victory. This gave them 7th overall, by 2 victories to 1 over Holmberg.
For reasons of time, the 7th/8th and 5th/6th place and petit-final sail-offs were reduced to best-of-three races. The semi-finals were first to three wins.
The finals saw three clear victories for Ian Williams over Seb Col. In the second race of the 5th/6th sail-off, there was a dead heat between Mathieu Richard and Danish sailor Peter Wibroe, before Richard, who had won the first race, took the third too to obtain 5th overall. In the petit-final, Mirsky won the first race before Berntsson obtained two victories for third place overall.
A full report on the semi-finals and finals will follow from Yvonne Reid.
BlackMatch Racing
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