Sunday 22 May 2011

FMJ Racing on Top at the Maritim Cup, Helsinki


FMJ Racing: the team in Finland. Supplied image.

by Will Tiller

We have just come in off the water in Helsinki after the first days racing at the grade 2 Maritim Cup. It was a solid day for the boys with 4 wins from 4 matches putting us up the top of the leader board, but there is still a lot of racing to go in the round robin with 11 teams competing.

This is our first time in J80 type boats but we are going well with solid boat handling and sailing fast. The breeze today was very gusty and of moderate strength so positioning for the gusts was very important. With good starts and smart tactics we won all our races by comfortable margins giving us confidence going into tomorrow’s racing.


FMJ Racing training on a Nacra 20 cat. Image copyright FMJ Racing.

For the past couple weeks after our regatta in Korea Will, Harry and Shaun have been in New York and Weymouth. In NY we sailed out of the Oakcliff Sailing Centre where we competed in a clinic regatta and also coached some local sailors. We also had the opportunity to train in a Nacra 20 catamaran for a few days quickly getting addicted to the excitement of multihull sailing. After this we travelled to Weymouth where we joined the British Olympic match racing team to do some intensive training in Elliot 6s.

We would like to thank our principal sponsor Chris Meads, SLAM and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

FMJ Racing is:
Will Tiller - Skipper
Brad Farrand - Tactician
Harry Thurston - Trimmer
Shaun Mason - Bow
Daniel Pooley
Jono Spurdle

FMJ Racing
Maritim Cup, Helsinki