CMRC Spring Invitational - Golden Team victorious on final day
by Chicago Match Race Center on 21 May 2013
Ryan Davidson and team win 2013 Spring Invitational Grade 3 Meredith Block
http://www.blocksail.com/
On the second and final day of the Chicago Match Race Center’s Grade 3 Spring Invitational, the fluky conditions of Saturday persisted, forcing organizers to determine a winner from the results of only six complete flights in the field of 10 teams. In four years of running dozens of match race events, this is only the second time CMRC has had the weather force an incomplete format of racing.
After a postponement ashore to wait for breeze, the teams were hurried out to the water to race Flight 4 in a breeze that built to where teams were full-hiked throughout their matches. But this then died away to nothing, forcing another delay. This same pattern occurred twice more, allowing for two more completed flights, separated by long periods of calm conditions.
While not an ideal scenario, there were enough flights completed to have a winner: Newport Beach-based Ryan Davidson and his Golden State Match Racing team of Payson Infelise, Brandon Folkman and Matt Hecht, who amassed an impressive 5-0 score in tricky conditions. This victory will give Davidson an automatic invitation to next month's Grade 2 Chicago Match Cup Qualifier and the chance to compete in the CMRC's main event of the season in August, the Grade WC Chicago Match Cup, the only US stop on the Alpari World Match Racing Tour. Both events will be held at Chicago's world-famous Navy Pier.
Perhaps the most exciting action of the weekend was the complicated tie-break exercise was then needed to round out the remaining results, as three teams - Don Wilson, Will Cyr and Nathan Hollerbach - were all tied on scores of 4-1. Chief umpire Tom Rinda and his team then unraveled the Byzantine complexity of scores to determine the runner-up to be CMRC's Don Wilson, who is now crowned as the 2013 Lake Michigan Match Race Champion. Third place went to Will Cyr from Detroit, and fourth to Nathan Hollerbach from CMRC. For being the top two Lake Michigan-based finishers, Hollerbach and Wilson will both receive invitations to this year's match race championship for the Great Lakes, the Richardson Cup, to be held in September at Buffalo YC.
Final results:
1) Dividson 5-0
2) Wilson 4-1
3) Cyr 4-1
4) Hollerbach 4-1
5) Smith 2-3
6) Hayes 2-3
7) Polzin 1-4
8) Pusch 1-4
9) Hansen 1-4
10) Turney 0-5
Chicago Match Race website
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