Waka Racing in the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, already seemingly laying claim to the King Edward VII Gold Cup! Supplied image.
by Garth Ellingham
Today was the first day of the World Match Race Tour Bermuda Gold Cup.Where we have just come in off the water with 2 wins and 1 loss score on the score card.
This event has a brutal format with 24 teams split into 3 groups, with each group completing a round robin. The top 2 finishers go directly through to the top 8 and 3rd and 4th getting a second chance in the repacharge.
Our victories today came against current Chicago Match Race Cup Champion Mike Buckley and Womens World No.1 Lucy Macgreggor.
Video of Lucy Macgregor (GBR) trying to get rid of her penalty at the end of the race and not succeeding in finishing ahead of the Waka Racing boys:
In our match against Lucy we did a nice job inflicting a penalty in the prestart and decided to keep it close in the difficult, shifting conditions. However she just managed to sneak in front of us at the last top mark, which meant we had a slow situation where she was trying to slow down to wipe her penalty and we were trying to keep clear. After a pretty exciting downwind with kites up and down multiple times, we patiently waited for the perfect time to pass her cleanly and take the race.
Our loss today came in our first race of the day against Taylor Canfield. The deciding factor in this race was pretty much the start where we unfortunately were a little bit back from the line and close to windward. This meant he was able to tack with us, resulting in us doing a double tack, which are very costly in these boats.
Waka Racing competing against Lucy Macgregor (GBR). Image copyright Subzero Images/WMRT.
Results for Group 1:
Hansen 2-1
Canfield 2-1
Robertson 2-1
Radich 2-1
MacGregor 1-2
Buckley 1-2
Richard 1-2
McLaughlin 1-2
So overall an ok day but we need to step it up tomorrow with four tough matchs that we need to do well in if we want to advance to the next stage.
Waka Racing would like to thank our main sponsor Tax Management NZ and all the support we receive from the RNZYS, Frontend, Zhik , Wells and Co, PredictWind and Devine Consultants.
Waka Racing
Argo Group Gold Cup
World Match Racing Tour
