WMRT Match Race Germany – Black Swan Racing take sixth

by Black Swan Racing on 4 Jun 2012 WMRT Match Race Germany, the first event of the Alpari World Match Racing Tour for 2012, is over resulting in sixth place for Black Swan Racing. We knew this regatta would be a challenge, both boats and sailing conditions on Lake Constance made this an easy guess.

We began the regatta a little slowly with a record of 4-4 after the first day. It was quite difficult to get things together after having virtually no practice on the boats. We did however improve throughout the day and achieved this score despite being 0-2 after the first two races.

Going into day two we knew we had to win two from three races to be guaranteed a position in the quarter finals. This was going to be a challenge with races against Pierre-Antoine Morvan, Peter Gilmour and Phil Robertson. We put in a great performance winning all three races. It was particularly pleasing to get our first win ever over match racing veteran Peter Gilmour and also pull off some great moves against our younger rivals.

With competitors seeded for the quarterfinals, despite finishing with seven wins four losses we were not in a position to choose our opponent. This left us to sail Peter Gilmour after the other competitors admitted not wanting to sail 'The Australians'! We went out on the water for one race against Gilmour at the end of the day. Unfortunately we made a mess of the start allowing Gilmour to force us over the start line early. This made it any easy win for the veteran. We took to the water on the following day determined to level the score with Gilmour. Racing got underway in very light conditions which made it very difficult to equalise the advantage held by the starboard entry boat. Having lost our first starboard end race the day before really put the pressure on us in the starts. Unfortunately Gilmour nailed home the advantage, getting off the line is a much stronger position than us. We even tried to use the spinnaker but it wasn't enough. This put Gilmour to 2-0, however we demonstrated the same control in race three winning the start and leading start to finish. As the race committee repositioned the race course we hoped we might have a better chance in the fourth race to level the score. Again we used the spinnaker to try and get a better position in the pre-start and we did a reasonable job of this considering the conditions but Gilmour was still able to eek out an advantage off the start line. We fought hard for the remainder of the race but without making any significant inroads.

This was certainly an anti-climax to the regatta. We felt really strong after winning the last three races of the round robin but the first race of the quarter final proved decisive. It would have been nice to feel like we could have done more to win the races but in reality it was really tough! We are very happy with how we are sailing and really looking forward to the next tour event Stena Match Cup Sweden.

Black Swan Racing: Keith Swinton, Olof Lundgren, Jakob Gustafsson, Ted Hackney and Ricky McGarvie.
2012 World Match Racing Tour Card Holders

We would like to thank Hardstaff AB, GCS, South of Perth Yacht Club, Abbotts Chartered Accountants, Lister Petter Diesel Generators and Musto Clothing/Trendmark AB for their support in Black Swan Racing World Match Racing Tour website