BlackMatch Racing report on the Monsoon Cup Day One

by David Swete

The Monsoon Cup World Tour Event is the 9th stage of the 2008 World Match Racing Tour and it signals the finale of this prestigious competition. It is compulsory to count your points earned at the Monsoon Cup towards the overall championship and with 1.5 times more points then any other event up for grabs, these two factors mean it is vital to perform here in Malaysia.

There are three teams in contention for the World Title including reigning champion Ian William's, K Challenge America's Cup helmsman Sebastian Col and ISAF World #1 Mathieu Richard. The battle to see who will come out on top will make for an extremely exciting scene here over the next 5 days. We are among many other teams with a shot at making it onto the podium so will also be fighting extremely hard to improve on our current placing of 4th.

This morning the teams had a chance to have a practice session in the Bakewell White 36's before being treated to some of the local Terengganu culture and a magnificent opening ceremony. We were then thrust straight into the action with the race committee managing to fire away 3 matches before the end of the day. We were only involved in one of the matches and managed to take a convincing win over the promising Sebastian Col. The extremely hot day allowed an 8 knot sea breeze to fill in and the afternoon saw great match racing conditions in the purpose built 'Yachting Stadium'.

We appreciate all of the support we have received throughout the year. BlackMatch would firstly like to thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 New Zealand. Without the support of David Ross from Fedex Asia and Ross Munro from Line 7, we would not have been able to achieve what we have this year. Thank you also for the Support from our yacht club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and also Emirates Team New Zealand.

BlackMatch Racing