WMRT: 5th enough for BlackMatch to regain World Match Racing Tour Lead

by David Swete

After bowing out of the quarterfinals we still had a fight on our hands to secure 5th place on the final day. We chose to race Torvar Mirsky in our first match which left Peter Gilmour to take on Mathieu Richard. There was a different vibe on the boat and we totally dominated the young Australian, forcing a penalty on him in the pre-start then sailing away for a comfortable victory. It was a similar story against Peter Gilmour, we gained the favoured right hand side of the course and had better speed off the start line which gave us the initial advantage, we were able to capitalise on this to secure 5th place at the 2009 Korea Match Cup.

After the disappointment of the previous day it was great to get some form back and beat the two Australian teams. Reward for our 5th placing is the fact that we have regained the World Match Racing Tour lead, with a 1 point advantage over Ben Ainslie and we are definitely happy about this.

This week we are off to Valencia to train in the Swedish Match 40 boats ahead of our upcoming regatta in Portugal, where we are looking forward to another good week of sailing.

BlackMatch would like to again thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 New Zealand. We would also like to say a special thank you to David Ross from Fedex Express and to Nigel Smith and Debbie Fowler who flew to Korea from Singapore to support us throughout the week, it was great to have such an enthusiastic fan club and such a shame we couldn’t quite bring it home for them. We would also like to thank our yacht club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Emirates Team New Zealand.

OVERALL RESULTS
1st Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza
2nd Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
3rd Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
4th Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard
5th Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
6th Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
7th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing
8th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
9th Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge
10th Laurie Jury (NZL)
11th Philippe Presti (FRA) French Match Racing Team
12th Byeong Ki Park (KOR)

BlackMatch Racing
World Match Racing Tour