Taylor Canfield does the Chicago Double Dutch + Video

by Andy Rice on 9 Oct 2014 Taylor Canfield and US One had a lot to do if they were going to stop Ian Williams and GAC Pindar running away with this year’s Alpari World Match Racing Tour (AWMRT). An intense rivalry has developed between the experienced Briton and his younger rival from the US Virgin Islands. They couldn’t be more different in character. It’s hard to imagine the focused, intense Williams meeting up for an apres-sail drink with the deceptively easy-going and laid-back Canfield.

These two display a very different outward persona, but underneath they’re not so dissimilar. They both love to win, hate to lose. Williams has won four ISAF World Championships through his no-stone-unturned approach to the game, meticulously calculating the time-on-distance for every manoeuvre in every type of boat on the Tour. Williams doesn’t have a game face, the importance of the moment is writ large on his determined features. Canfield’s persona, on the other hand, is designed to disarm you with charm, although the reality is that beneath that smily exterior, he’s every bit the ruthless assassin as Williams. To win an ISAF Match Racing World Championship, you can’t be any other way. No room for softies in this game!

Williams has been on alarmingly good form this season, perhaps spurred on by so narrowly missing out on a record fifth world title at the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia last year. Phil Robertson’s victory over Williams in the Monsoon final brought Canfield his first World Championship, achieved in his first full year on the Tour.

With Williams seemingly unstoppable, reaching the final of every event in 2014 and with victories at Match Race Germany and Sopot Match Race in Poland, Canfield really needed to pull out all the stops for the Chicago Match Cup. Having spent four years in these boats at this venue as Sailing Director of the Chicago Match Race Center, no one feels more at home in the Tom 28 keelboats than Canfield and US One. This is one he would need to win.

Indeed Canfield would soon go on to prove his pre-event status as favourite, winning all but one of his Qualifying matches. Things didn’t go so well for Bjorn Hansen, who came back from the dead at Stena Match Cup Sweden earlier in the summer to seize victory in front of his home crowd. Hansen has never been as comfortable in the lighter boats, though, and was finding it tough going in Chicago. Having been somewhat lacklustre in Qualifying, he would need to do better in the Repechage. Three matches in, however, and he was yet to put a score on the board. He would need to win all of his remaining four matches to have a chance to go through to the Quarter Finals, and even then would be at the mercy of tie-breaks among the other seven teams to determine his fate.

Aside from the Tour Card holders, there were some class acts in the Chicago line-up, not least Olympic Champion and America’s Cup winning strategist, Tom Slingsby. For someone with a limited background in keelboat match racing, the Australian acquitted himself well, but not quite enough to get through the Repechage. Instead it was Hansen who pulled out a world-class performance when he most needed it, scraping through to the Quarter Final. He then clinched the next round 3-2 against Phil Robertson, before falling 3-0 to Canfield in the Semi Final.

Meanwhile Williams beat Mathieu Richard 3-1 to take his place in the Final against Canfield. Up to this point US One had dropped just one match in the whole competition, but only a champion of Williams’ calibre would refuse to be daunted by such a record. The Briton took the first match, breaking Canfield’s golden run, albeit it came right down to the wire, with Canfield forced to yield the point to his rival when he was given a penalty in the dying moments of a tense and close match.

The next two matches were also close and hard-fought, but ultimately went Canfield’s way. He was back in his rhythm and sealed victory at the Chicago Match Cup with an easy final-race win to beat Williams 3-1. In the Petit Final, Richard defeated Hansen 2-0.

Canfield had won his first event of the season. 'It was fantastic to defend this event in front of all of our families and friends,' he said. 'I really have to thank my team for an incredible performance this week in only losing two matches. In these conditions when you’re behind never out of it, and this team is incredible: when we were behind they only pushed harder for us to win.'

There was barely time to celebrate victory before US One and the other Tour Card holders were on a plane and jetting across the Atlantic to Holland for a brand new event, the Dutch Match Cup in Lelystad. Not only was the venue new to the sailors, but so too was the Maxfun25, a lightweight, planing keelboat rigged with asymmetric spinnaker.

The first couple of days of Qualifying were windy, catching out even the likes of Williams who broached spectacularly during his match against David Gilmour, whose seventh in the 49er World Championships a week earlier seemed to be standing the young Australian in good stead with these tippy keelboats.

Gilmour’s mastery of the Maxfun25 looked certain to see him safely through Qualifying, whereas two of the old masters, Williams and Hansen, were on the cusp of early elimination. Going into the concluding round of 22 flights of Qualifying, one of these two was facing an early bath. Familiar territory for the Swede, who so often has bounced back from a shaky start to his regattas this season, but unheard of for the Great Briton who frequently tops the leaderboard at the end of Qualifying. In the end, it was Hansen that would fall, while Williams did just enough to sneak past Mathieu Richard in a hard-fought match with the Frenchman.

The surprise package of the event was the young French team skippered by Arthur Herreman who have plugged away on the match racing circuit over the past three years to rise from 340th to 20th in the world rankings. They won six matches including two Tour Card scalps - Hansen and David Gilmour. Herreman also gave his training partner, Richard, a few scares in the Quarter Final before exiting the competition in seventh place overall, a very creditable first event on the Tour.

Half-way through the event the breeze dropped from being too much to too little, with Canfield relieved at getting a bye through to the Semi Final due to winning the Qualifying series. Even with the drop in breeze, Gilmour was still very comfortable in the Maxfun25s, beating fellow Western Australian Keith Swinton and Team Alpari FX 3-0. The tensest Quarter Final duel was between Ian Williams and Phil Robertson. The Kiwis on WAKA Racing took the first two matches, leaving GAC Pindar with the daunting prospect of winning three in a row. However the four-time ISAF World Champion kept his nerve and managed to do exactly that.

In the Semi Final, Gilmour took an easy first win against US One and was showing the kind of form that could have yielded overall victory. However in another match Gilmour seemed to have an unassailable lead but allowed too much separation on the final run. So often the chasing boat would take its chances by the shore, and would be frequently rewarded for doing so. Canfield never gives up, and seems able to win from the most impossible of positions. The US Virgin Islander took the next three matches to secure his place in the Final.

It was the same pattern in the other Semi Final, with Richard taking the first match against Williams. But then the French team made a series of unforced errors that will haunt them for some time afterwards, and they gifted some opportunities that GAC Pindar were always going to pounce on. Williams and Canfield had both won their Semis 3-1, and once again it was the World No1 and No2 skippers pitted against each other in the Final.

In the Petit Final, Gilmour beat Richard 2-1 to take his first podium finish in a Tour event, a significant moment for the Australian looking to emulate his father Peter who, like Williams, won four match racing world titles.

The Final was a typically aggressive affair between the two arch-rivals. In the pre-start of the first match, Canfield stuck two penalties on Williams, leaving the British boat playing catch-up. However on the downwind leg, Williams found a sliver of stronger breeze by the harbour shore close to the cheering crowds in Lelystad. The British came close to rolling over the top of US One but failed to keep clear from a Canfield luff. Another penalty for Williams, then another penalty towards the leeward gate, and Canfield was uncatchable. 1-0.

In the second match, Williams got the slightly better start and converted that into a five-length lead by the first windward mark. Canfield sailed over to the shore on the second beat and used the cheers of the crowd to waft him closer to Williams. GAC Pindar was still in the lead at the final turning mark, but US One again went shoreside and managed to sneak ahead of their opponent just before the finish. 2-0, and the Dutch Match Cup went to Canfield.



Williams might have lost the battle, but the four-time World Champion is still winning the war, albeit his 94 points are not that far in front of Canfield’s 88. 'Of course we’re disappointed not to have won here today,' shrugged Williams, 'but we’re pleased to have made this the sixth final in a row that we’ve reached on the Tour, stretching back to Monsoon Cup last year.

Congratulations to Taylor and US One, they sailed extremely well, and we look forward to the next one.' That ‘next one’ is the Argo Group Gold Cup later this month. After the light and responsive sportsboats used in Chicago and Lelystad, the larger and heavier International One Designs present a different kind of challenge in Bermuda. That’s the Darwinian challenge of the Alpari World Match Racing Tour. Adapt or die.

2014 Leaderboard Standings

1 Ian Williams (GBR) GAC Pindar 94pts
2 Taylor Canfield (ISV) US One 88pts
3 Mathieu Richard (FRA) LunaJets 76pts
4 Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Hansen Sailing 63pts
5 Keith Swinton (AUS) Team Alpari FX 58pts
6 Phil Robertson (NZL) WAKA Racing 56pts
7 David Gilmour (AUS) Team Gilmour 39pts
8 Francesco Bruni (ITA) Luna Rossa WMRT Website