Bottom mark rounding for BlackMatch. Image copyright Ian Roman/WMRT.
by David Swete
Day two of the St Moritz Match Race saw us involved in only 3 matches and we could only manage a single victory over the local team, skippered by Jerome Clerc. We suffered at the hands of two French teams today losing out to veteran Betrand Pace and the ever consistent Damien Iehl.
The infamous shifty conditions of the St Moritz Match Race were in full force today, as shown in our match against Betrand Pace. Despite forcing a penalty on the wily Frenchman, he sailed very well around the course to etch out enough of a lead to complete his penalty turn. It was also very hard to defend your lead today and despite being almost 8 boat lengths in front of the local team at one stage during our match, they closed the gap right up at the top mark and we had to defend hard to protect our lead.
We have 3 races remaining in the round robin and with one more win needed to secure a spot in the next stage of the event, we still have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow we face arguably the three most formidable competitors in Britains Ben Ainslie and Ian Williams also the Frenchman Mathieu Richard. All three of these teams have been showing awesome form this week and their reputation precedes them, however we are confident we can get the wins needed.
We would again like to say a special thank you to our sponsors FedEx Express and Events Clothing/Line 7. Owen Rutter from Events Clothing has supplied us with new sailing gear this season, keeping the boys looking very sharp and also warm up here in the cold mountains. The ongoing support of our sponsors is helping make this opportunity possible for the BlackMatch boys. We would also like to thank Emirates Team New Zealand and Steinlager Pure.
BlackMatch Racing this week is Adam Minoprio, Tom Powrie, David Swete and Nick Blackman.
Round Robin results after Day 2
Williams (GBR) 7-1
Richard (FRA) 6-2
Ainslie (GBR) 6-2
Minoprio (NZL) 5-3
Iehl (FRA) 5-4
Pace (FRA) 5-4
Hansen (SWE) 5-4
Mirsky (AUS) 4-4
Bruni (ITA) 4-4
Berntsson (SWE) 2-7
Monnin (SUI) 2-7
Clerc (SUI) 0-9
BlackMatch Racing
World Match Racing Tour
