WMRT: BlackMatch 2 nil up in semi finals of Danish Open

by David Swete

Needing 2 wins from our 3 remaining matches this morning to qualify for the semi finals, we came out firing and won all 3 to claim the top qualifying position for the semi finals. We had three action packed wins against Torvar Mirsky, Bjorn Hansen and Ben Ainslie, with our match against Ben becoming so heated that a protest flag was hurled at us from the frustrated Brit, after a bottom mark incident. Our reward for qualifying top meant that we could choose our semi final opponent and we picked Italy’s Francesco Bruni, which left Torvar Mirsky to battle it out with Mathieu Richard. We are currently on match point 2 nil up against Bruni following two extremely tight races, while the in form Richard is also 2 matches up on Mirsky.

TeamOrigin's Ben Ainslie had a terrible day losing all three of his matches and was perhaps venting some anger when we gained a slight overlap to claim mark room at a bottom mark rounding. A minor yelling match ensued when he launched his protest flag at us, before a decision was even made on the incident. He was first handed a penalty for not giving us room and then a second for dissent toward the umpires.

In our first match against Bruni we both had a pretty even start. We managed to live to windward and hold the Italians all the way to an obstruction zone when there was an odd incident regarding a ‘water and room to tack call’ that saw us landed with a penalty. We managed to extend throughout the remainder of the race to hold what we thought would be enough of a lead to do our penalty turn on the finish line, however it was going to be close. We executed a nice drop right on the finish line and after our turn we only took the race by a few metres.

The next race was just as close and in a similar situation, although the roles were reversed. We gained the initial advantage with a great start, however Bruni closed the gap on the first downwind and managed to hold us out past the bottom mark. The umpires deemed that we had however broken the overlap and they were not entitled to sail us past the mark so they were handed a penalty. The next upwind we did our best to keep it close and even managed to gain in on the Italians, so they had no choice but to wait for us on the final downwind to try and force a penalty back on us. We have seen this situation many times and although they did a nice job of slowing down and setting up a trap, we managed to keep cool heads and roll them right on the finish line to set us up on match point.

In the other semi final Current World Tour Leader Mathieu Richard seems to be dominating Torvar Mirsky. This does not bode well for overall tour points, so not only are we hoping to get the win needed tomorrow to qualify for the final, but we are also cheering for our Australian rivals.

For a live feed and coverage of the finals please visit www.wmrt.com. There will be a live stream including onboard cameras available on the World Tour website, so we hope you can tune in tomorrow from 8pm NZ time (9am UK time).

Video highlights of the day's racing:


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. The ongoing support of our sponsors is helping make this opportunity possible for the BlackMatch boys and we would also like to thank Emirates Team New Zealand and Steinlager Pure.

BlackMatch Racing this week is Adam Minoprio, Dan McLean, Tom Powrie, David Swete, Nick Blackman and local boy Jonas Frank Hviid-Nielsen.

BlackMatch Racing
World Match Racing Tour