Match Race Germany - Team Gilmour finishes sixth

by Team Gilmour on 11 Jun 2014 At Match Race Germany, it was a long week of light and fickle breeze in the heavy Bavaria 40's and the team made huge improvements throughout the whole event adapting to the very slow style of sailing very well, but in the end it wasn't enough.

The round robin didn't go off to the best start with a few losses against Swinton and Hansen that had the potential to really hurt our chances to make the quarterfinals. It was the next day though that made things very difficult as we were sailing a boat that was clearly slower than the rest of the fleet and went down in all three races we sailed in that by a huge margin. This meant we had three final must win races if we wanted to progress to the quarterfinals and the team did exactly what it needed winning all three races on the final day of qualifying to secure their spot in the quarterfinals.

Waka Racing skippered by Phil Robertson chose to race us in the quarterfinals and after an entire day of no wind late in the afternoon a light breeze filled in on the lake and allowed us to complete the quarters in a best of three race series. The first race the Kiwis just had a slight edge on us and were able to take the win. The second was almost a complete opposite with us gaining the advantage and taking the win from there. So it came down to the decider in the third and after a good tart there was a huge split up the first upwind with the Waka racing guys just able to hold us out from crossing them at the top mark from there things were a bit processional with Phil and his team leading the whole way around the course.

Losing 2-1 in the quarterfinals meant we finished sixth overall and although the result was disappointing the team felt we were sailing well and it was a good start to the Alpari World Match Racing Tour.

No time for rest now with the guys heading to the UK for the Royal Southern Match Race grade two event in Hamble which will be another tough event with a tough lineup of teams announced. Then it will be little break from the match racing before Match Cup Sweden in Mastrand.