Alpari World Match Racing Tour - Team USone secures Tour Card

by Stephanie Roble on 6 Mar 2013 The Alpari World Match Racing Tour 2013 (AWMRT) awarded a Tour Card to Reigning US Match Racing National champion Taylor Canfield of the Chicago Match Racing Center (CMRC), making him the only North American skipper among eight international teams to receive this honor. 24-year old Canfield and his USone team will receive coveted invitations to all events on this year's Tour.

'Getting to the Tour has been a 3-year goal for us, so we're really pleased to have reached this milestone and the chance to defend our titles from 2012,' said Canfield, a native of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. 'We are thankful for the opportunities we have had at the Chicago Match Race Center to train, compete, and lay the foundation for the return of a US-based team to the World Tour.'

'The Tour Card system is a means to provide event promoters with access to a consistent pool of the world's top match racers and this year's demand for the Tour Cards has remained very high,' explained James Pleasance, Executive Director of the AWMRT.

Canfield is joined on USone by the talented trimmers and Midwestern natives Matt Clark (Chicago, IL), Dan Morris (Minnetonka, MN), and Mike Rehe (Detroit, MI). Three-time Match Racing World Champion Rod Dawson of New Zealand fills the team's tactician role. Hayden Goodrick, a fellow kiwi and veteran AWMRT bowman rounds out the team.

USone's impressive performance last year - wildcard wins in Bermuda and in Malaysia - vaulted them to a seventh place finish in the overall Tour standings. Doubly impressive is that Canfield did not hold a Tour Card and only counted three finishes to other team's five. This success has given the team the opportunity to join the world's top professional sailing series and the confidence to commit to all stops on the Tour. They will travel to Germany, Korea, Sweden, Chicago, Holland, Bermuda and Malaysia in pursuit of the ISAF World Match Racing title and the Tours $1.75 million prize purse.

USone will start their season next month at Long Beach YC's Ficker Cup, and then race immediately afterward in the Congressional Cup. Canfield's invitation to the 49th edition of the Grade 1 match race was earned by winning last year's US Grand Slam Series, a collection of four Grade 2 events across in the US in Chicago, Detroit, two in New York.

For more information on Taylor Canfield and Team USone, visit US One Sailing