BlackMatch Racing competing at the Gold Cup. Image copyright Charles Anderson.
by David Swete
Teams were held ashore for two hours Thursday morning as the remainder of a nasty weather system passed over Bermuda, but when racing finally got underway it was well worth the wait and 6 of the 8 quarterfinalists were decided. We managed to qualify directly for the quarterfinals with 4 wins and 3 losses, however a tiebreak was needed to decide who went through due to the fact that four teams in our group had the same scorecard.
Adam keeps an eye on Bjorn Hansen. Image copyright Jenny Warner.
Tied with Bjorn Hansen, Sebastian Col and Dave Perry, we only progressed as we had beaten both Dave and Bjorn in our matches, while they all had only one win to their name against each other. This was not the best way to go through and a devastated Col came out worst, dropping into 5th position in our group and failing to even qualify for the repechage.
BlackMatch trail TeamOrigin around the mark. Image copyright Charles Anderson.
Topping our group was the legendary Ben Ainslie, who is the only skipper in the entire event to still be unbeaten and is showing excellent form. We had a great tussle with Ben in our match and it was very close, however we received a penalty in our match after the umpires deemed that we had sailed above our proper course on the first downwind and we never managed to recover as the Brit sailed to victory.
Battle of the bowmen (against Seb Col). Image copyright Jenny Warner.
Our final match of the day and what we understood to be a must win match against Sebastian Col went down to the wire. After an even start the French team etched out a small advantage but were handed a penalty when we luffed just after the start. They continued to show good boat speed around the course, however we managed to stay in touch and on the final downwind they held a four boat length advantage. Touch and go whether they would be able to complete their penalty turn, they waited right until the finish line and as we charged down the course they just managed to undertake their turn and cross the line inches in front of us.
Approaching the finish - Col has a penalty. Image copyright Jenny Warner.
Although we felt we were sailing very well today, the scoreboard didn’t quite reflect this and all be it not the most convincing way to qualify, we have to be happy with making our second Argo Group Gold Cup Quarterfinal. Tomorrow we will face Mathieu Richard who has only suffered one defeat so far this week, an unenviable task but we have a great track record against the Frenchman and are looking forward to an exciting quarterfinal.
BlackMatch would again like to make a special mention to Mark Watson who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Argo Group. Mark yet again invited us to spend the day on the VIP boat and it was a great day to watch the matches we were not involved in. We would also like to thank our sponsors FedEx Express. To the RNZYS and Emirates Team New Zealand, thank you for your support. A special mention also has to made to my better half Jenny Warner who not only is the team's photographer, but has also been entertaining our friends from FedEx this week.
BlackMatch Racing
World Match Racing Tour
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