BlackMatch Back in Action in Spain

by David Swete

Tuesday was the opening day of the Open de Espana Grade 1 event held in the picturesque town of Calpe, on the Meditterean coast of Spain. This is our second visit to Calpe, having competed here 4 years ago where we gained a respectable 5th placing and we are hoping to better that performance despite the very tough competition at this years edition of the event.

Four of the world's top ten Skippers are competing while amoungst many other highly ranked skippers is fellow Kiwi Phil Robertson in his debut grade 1 event, having earnt his place here by winning the prestigious Warren Jones youth regatta in Perth last January. It is great to be joined in Europe by Phil and his young Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadran team, they are sailing with yet another legendary Kiwi, Andrew Taylor (aka Raw Meat) and have made a great start to the regatta with 3 wins.

We had a mixed start to the regatta winning two and losing two however one of our losses included a black flag disqualification, the result of some extremely dubious umpiring which we are hoping to put behind us. Our wins came against South African Ian Ainslie, who has newly recruited BlackMatch crew member Dan Mclean trimming for him and an all girls team from Germany who are preparing for the 2012 Olympics. Our first match tomorrow is against Phil and his talented Kiwi team and should be an awesome race while we both vie for a win to keep us on track for a quarter final berth.

Open de Espana