Gilmour Day at Monsoon Cup

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World Team on 8 Dec 2012 Terengganu Malaysia. Four times ISAF World Match Racing Champion and dual Monsoon Cup winner Australia’s Peter Gilmour finished atop the qualifying round leader board yesterday and chose his son David sailing in his first World Match Racing Tour event and the lowest ranked qualifier as his quarter final opponent.

Young Gilly smacked his father on the nose with a first up win but could not hold his line against Gilly Senior who won 3-1 and is now set to race in the semi finals.

Dockside Peter Gilmour commented ‘‘David has been really learning tremendously and he could have easily beaten us except for maybe a little bit of inexperience on his behalf on what to do when you have really got your foot on someone’s throat. You don’t let them up. In the second race, the mistake of doing their penalty after the start will have been a good learning experience for David. He let his old man get up off the deck which was very kind of him.

‘Congratulations to Ian and his time winning their fourth world championship. Ian in his early 30’s that is quite an achievement. I am in awe of him and his team. Ian is only 35 and will surely go on to win a fifth title and then some.
‘Right now we will be taking one race at a time, we will be racing Canfield in the semis – a very talented young sailor and we will need to be on the top of our game.’

David Gilmour was disappointed but pleased to have made it so far. He said ‘We have still lots of things to learn. This whole week we have been working on, if you sail at this top level you have got to be fast and you have got to be sailing the right way and that is what we have been working on all week.

‘Then in the quarter finals we found ourselves in a leading position, we’d won the first race and we were well ahead in the second and forgot a bit about the match racing and the risk management side and kept trying to sail faster around the course and it just didn’t pay off.

‘My Dad was able to get past us in that race. In the other two races I think we were fairly beaten and in the first one where we won we were happy to get that one on him. He still has a few more tricks up his sleeve than we do and we have got a lot to learn.

‘He already has helped us tremendously in this regatta already. Just a few pointers here and there of what we should be doing or shouldn’t be doing. It has definitely probably got us to where we are and we will keep trying to improve and hope to back next year for another go, with a lot more experience under our belts.

‘I have got a good group of guys around me now that are keen to do some more sailing and some more match racing so I think we will give it a good shot now that we have got a good team to work with and go forward with.

‘Right now, we are all hoping Dad you win from here. I think if he keeps sailing well he might be able to knock it off for the third time. I will be the onshore coach for the Semi’s so I will be doing my bit to help.’