It's all on at the bottom mark as we defend our lead against Ian Williams, the result was a penalty to the Brits. Image copyright Gareth Cooke/Subzero Images.
by David Swete
An incredible comeback back in our semi final match up with recently crowned World Tour Champion Ian Williams, saw us win 3 straight races this morning and secure our spot in the 2008 Monsoon Cup Final. Facing a 2 nil deficit overnight we were backed into to a corner with the Brit on match point, but we came out fighting and won our 3 'must win' matches in very exciting fashion.
Perhaps our most exciting match was the deciding one to send us through to our second World Tour Final this year. Adam yet again nailed the start, managing to lock Ian out above the start boat layline, but an aggressive Williams proceeded to go between us and the boat and we protested. When the start gun went we were both judged over the line and had to return to the start, although Ian still had the advantage so was handed a second penalty by the umpires, one of which he had to take immediately.
Ian still held a narrow lead at the top mark and sailed us beyond the top mark where he cleverly did his penalty to even the game back up however we had gained a small lead. On the downwind the Pindar Racing Team kept attacking us as they brought better wind pressure up from behind, but on approach to the bottom mark Adam called for us to drop our spinnaker and we went for the luff to defend our lead. Our crew work during this manoeuvre was awesome and the British team failed to react in time, their spinnaker hitting our boat and they were handed yet another penalty while we had a clean mark rounding and extended to take the victory.
Our ability to fight back from 2 nil down against the World Tour Champion was phenomenal, however it was not enough to spur us on to win the final against the legendary Peter Gilmour, who beat Torvar Mirsky in their semi final showdown, defeating us 3-1. The final saw a very one sided race track and Gilmour had his finger on the button, managing to win the favoured right side in every pre-start, although we did take a convincing win in the second match. BlackMatch would like to congratulate Peter Gilmour and his Yanmar Racing team on a great win here in Malaysia.
Nick lays one on the big fella after an emphatic Semi-Final win over Ian Williams and his Bahrain Pindar Racing Team. Image copyright Gareth Cooke/Subzero Images.
Our second consectutive 'Runner Up' placing at World Tour Events saw us finish the World Tour on equal points with ISAF World #1 Mathieu Richard and tied for 3rd, although the Frenchman pipped us to the podium because of his First placing at the St Moritz event. We are very happy with this result in our first year on the World Match Racing Tour, and are extremely motivated after securing our entry to the World Tour events next year with our result here.
BlackMatch would like to thank their sponsors Fedex Express and Line 7 New Zealand. Also a big thank you to our friends and family and our yacht club the RNZYS.
BlackMatch Racing
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