Kiwi Match head for New York

by Richard Gladwell on 16 Aug 2005 In just over the week the Kiwi Match Racing Team will be opening their account in the Knickerbocker Cup, sailed off the Knickerbocker Yacht Club in New York.

This will be the second year at the regatta for the young Kiwi Match Team, having finished sixth in the 2004 event. Kiwi Match is a team of young match racers trying to 'crack' the international match racing circuit, as so many of their fellow Kiwi sailors, such as Chris Dickson, Russell Coutts, Dean Barker and Gavin Brady have done in the past. All of the Kiwi Match Team are graduates of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's Youth Training program.

They will be keen to improve on their last regatta, the Internationaux de Match Racing de France sailed in early-mid August off the small town of Pornichet in Brittany, France.

This event was an ISAF Grade 1 event and represented the highest level of match racing available. After receiving an unexpected entry to this exclusive event it required the team to come together from all parts of the world. For this regatta, the Kiwi Match Team comprising Laurie Jury arrived from London, Rob Hielkema and Dan McLean from Valencia and Brad Marsh from New Zealand.

The regatta was sailed in Beneteau First Class 8 metres and it was the first time any of the team had sailed these boats. They were faced with a daunting challenge of new boats, new venue, tough regatta format and a very tough fleet of opponents.

The regatta format was one round robin and then semi finals and minor sail offs. At the end of the tough round robin they were at the bottom of the table and this placed them into a sail off with Seve Jarvin for 11th and 12th place. After a hard fought battle Kiwi Match lost to Seve and finished in 12th place. this placing is a little disappointing for the team as their goals were to make the top ten. The result does not reflect however just how much the team learnt from the fantastic experience. The racing was extremely close and on many occasions the results came down to very close calls made by the umpires.

The winner of the event was Ian Williams from GBR. Second went to the Russian entry, Neugodnikov and then Sebastian Col from K Challenge was third.

The Knickerbocker Cup will be sailed in Manhasset Bay, New York at the end of August. This is an ISAF Grade Two event that the team competed in last year and the Kiwi Match team for this event will be Laurie Jury, DanMcLean Rob Heilkema and Damon Jolliffe. Their hope is for a good result in this regatta before heading off to yet another ISAF Grade 1 event in Poland directly after.

The Kiwi Match Team is supported by Davis Langdon NZ, Dorlon and Gearlocker on Beaumont St. The team represents the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Source: www.kiwimatch.com