WMRT: Full Metal Jacket Racing on Day One of the Danish Open

by Will Tiller

Today was the first day of the Danish Open, the seventh stage of the World Match Racing Tour being held on Bornholm Island situated between Sweden and Denmark. Joining us for this regatta is our big man Jono Spurdle on the pit and Shaun Mason running the bow. It was our first time racing the DS37s in challenging fresh conditions and after over a month of racing in less than 10kts we were excited to go for a send. We raced in the first three races of the round robin and went down in each match, we spent the remainder of the day off the boats with byes.

The wind was consistently blowing 25 kts with gusts of up to 30 kts at times. We learnt quickly that these boats are overpowered with big mains and very physical. We raced against Mads Ebler, Mathieu Richard and Adam Minoprio ranked 13th, 4th and 1st respectively in the world.

Our best race of the day was against Mathieu Richard. In the prestart we ended up coming to the line with the French to windward but we were happy with the left. Off the line it was a long starboard tack and we did well to work up into them but not quite quickly enough and they tacked away on port lay. We followed tacking right onto a left shift so we were to windward breathing clear, Richard kept closed hauled well over lay and we both ended up flapping head to wind well above the mark.

Coming close to an obstruction they bpre away and we followed. The downwind was very gusty and we were able to make small gains and were right on his tail around the bottom mark tacking as soon as we could. A tacking dual ensued but nearing the top we got on the wrong side of a couple shifts and were unable to be close enough on the run to make a pass.

We were happy to see that our boat speed was good against the world number 4 and are excited about the remainder of the races in the round robin.

We would like to say thanks to our principal sponsor Chris Meads from Full Metal Jacket, SLAM, Aon New Zealand and The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Full Metal Jacket Racing
World Match Racing Tour