A strong mistral off Marseille prevented racing on day one of the Marseille International Match Race 2009. Image copyright Gilles Martin-Raget/World Match Racing Tour.
by Stephanie Nadin
The wind was too strong Wednesday (25-30 knots) to start racing as planned in the Round Robin of the 2009 World Match Racing Tour's first event. The Marseilles International Match Race's Race Committee decided to postpone the first races till tomorrow.
Before getting into the action, Sebastien Col comes back on the work he's been doing with his crew as they star the 2009 season, their methode and how they've been working towards this first event in Marseille:
Sebastien Col: “we have pushed the team during the two days of training, in order to see how we were getting along together in typical match racing situations that are difficult to manage. We realized that we still had a lot to put in place in terms of decision process and communications. There is no improvisation, so we will use this event to get more powerful. We are in a new configuration, we need to give Pascal some time to get started with us, and we won't be too aggressive. I wanted to push the team these two last days, and I think we are not 100% ready yet.
"We are going to start the event in a conservative way, so that we will improve step by step during the regatta. I mean that if we have the opportunity to lead a race, we will not look for a close situation or be aggressive with our opponent; we will prefer to play our game, our wind, our place on the race course, while trying not to get into tacking duels.
"The goal is not to find ourselves in situations where we have to make quick decisions because we are too close to our opponent. We will want to open the game, and take the time to make the right decisions. We will minimize the crossings, decision makings during a match, as for now we don't have an ideal process yet to make a decision in 30 seconds. We need 40 or 50. And we will take the time.
"It is the first event of the World Match Racing Tour, the first big one with Pascal too, and we don't have a result target here. The goal of this regatta is to finish the event with the maximum number of matches to reveal what we need to work on specifically in the coming months, and that we will be able to reinforce for the Congressional Cup and during the trainings with the French match racing team.”
Tomorrow the racing starts in the South bay of Marseille!
Sebastien Col
World Match Racing Tour
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