Mirsky Racing Team report on Monsoon Cup Day One

by Kinley Fowler

With teams tied at the top end of the leaderboard, and three teams still in the running to be crowned as World Champions, it is all coming down to the wire here in Malaysia as the World Tour Final begins to unfold. We started better than we could ask for, taking out both of our races today.

We jumped on the boat after the first race of the day had already been completed to face recent Olympic Gold Medallist and Male Sailor of the Year, Ben Ainslie and his Team Origin. The current was playing a big factor in the racing as the wind direction meant that two rivers were flowing onto the race course.

Fortunately we were able to get the start we wanted and made some big gains to lead around the first top mark, however, Ainslie sucked us in to gybing directly into the worst area of tide and made us work hard to keep our lead to the bottom mark. We learnt from our mistakes however, and managed to extend our lead to take out the first race.

The second race didn’t go as smoothly with world number 1 Mathieu Richard punishing us at the start. We managed to push hard, and were allowed to split right. With the tide helping us we caught up at the top mark, and with the starboard advantage we managed to round ahead. With our knowledge from the previous race, we were able to defend our position well and lead throughout to finish the day with two solid races under our belt.

A special thanks to Line7, Harken and the Royal Perth Yacht Club for their support.

Mirsky Racing Team