Kiwi Match – Carlos Aguilar Round Up

by Logan Fraser on 11 Dec 2010
The Team Kiwi Match season has finally come to a close at the conclusion of the Carlos Aguilar Match Race in the US Virgin Islands. Our final result here wasn't as successful as we had originally hoped, but on reflection there are a multitude of positives to be taken away from this regatta.

Unfortunately for us, the US Virgin Islands is an extremely difficult place to get too, with 2 days of flying, 2 transits and a massive time zone change. We also had a new team member, Andrew Lam joining us for this regatta from Hong Kong. In hindsight, all these factors meant that we turned up to this event in less than ideal condition. This showed through both on our training day, and our first race day; we really struggled to get to grips with sailing the boats smoothly and figuring out the challenging local conditions.

We likened the race course to sailing inside Fitzroy Harbour (for those familiar with the Great Barrier Island). Charlotte Amalie Harbour is surrounded by tall hills and ranges which caused some really random puffs and some huge wind shifts. With the race course set right next to the break wall, there was no way to read the conditions or predict the next puff. It was much more a case of sailing free and not over covering, rather than trying to predict the next shift. Even winning the favoured start was often not ideal, as most boats that lost the start would win the first cross.

So with a really tough first day, possibly one of our worst of the season, losing 5 races in a row, we were really on the back foot from the start. We tried our best to fight back the rest of the week but it was always going to be an uphill battle to make the semi finals given our early position. We definitely improved throughout the regatta, getting used to our crew positions and the weather. We knew it wasn’t going to take much to start converting races into wins, with us leading almost all our races at one point or another.

The first day did prove to be our undoing and the challenge proved a little too big for us. Our final result also wasn’t helped by the race committee being unable to complete the entire second round robin although the damage for us was already done.

This was a very well organised and well run regatta in a very beautiful part of the world. With just as much focus placed on the sailors having an enjoyable and memorable experience as there is with running great races it’s always going to be a winning formula. Although this event is only in its third year it continues to go from strength to strength. It attracts first class competition, great sponsors and is run by committed organisers.

We now return to New Zealand for the summer and the team will commence a comprehensive training programme as we look towards next season. We also have some exciting developments that we have been working on over the last few months. We have been really lucky to have had support for these last few regattas from Zoke, and look to welcome them onboard as a new sponsor going forward. Standby for more information as we finalise all the details.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the year. We have learnt a lot from what has been a challenging season, and look forward to building on everything we have achieved so far.

Final Results
1. Alvaro Marinho (POR)
2. Peter Holmberg (USVI)
3. Taylor Canfield (USVI)
4. Dave Perry (USA)
5. Colin Rathbun (BVI)
6. Laurie Jury (NZL)
7. Chris Van Tol (USA)
8. Stratis Andreadis (GRE)