Dutch Match Cup 2014 WMRT - Team Gilmour finishes third

by Team Gilmour on 30 Sep 2014 Alpari World Match Racing Tour 2014 - Dutch Match Cup - It has been an interesting week here in Lelystad, with a variety of conditions from cold and windy to hot and very light breeze. Team Gilmour adapted quickly to the MaxFun 25 yachts, the boats were quite dinghy like which suited our team well.

We had quite a solid qualifying round robin series finishing with 7.5 points after losing .5 points for damage in our race against US One. The format was a shortened quarter finals which meant the winner of the round robin proceeded directly to the semi finals. Canfield and his US One Team topped the RR with Mathieu Richard in second and us in third. Richard chose to race fellow country man Arthur Herreman and we decided to choose cross town rival Keith Swinton and his Team Alpari FX, which left Williams and Robertson to race each other.

We chose Swinton as we felt like we had adapted to the boats a little faster than his team, which proved to work in our favour. We defeated Team Alpari FX 3 to 0 in the quarterfinals, in light shifty conditions. We then watched the rest of the quarter finals ashore to see Richard overcome Herreman and Williams beat Robertson.

Canfield as the top qualifier had the task of choosing his opponent. He chose us, which left William and Richard to race each other. We won our first race against Canfield in similar conditions to the quarter finals before racing was called for the day.

The final day of the event saw very light and shifty winds from a new direction. The top mark was placed in very close to the shore for the crowds to get a good view of the racing. We had a significant lead in the second race of the quarter finals when on the final run Canfield gybed away into more pressure and a favorable shift and managed to lay the finish line while we remained in super light wind on the other side of the course.

Canfield went on to win the next two races and move into the finals. Williams and Richard went to two all in their quarter, while Richard was a long way in front on the final run he had a penalty outstanding. A poor spinnaker drop resulted in the whole spinnaker going in the water and then the hull of his boat making contact with the pin which allowed Williams to come from a long way behind to take the win and the remaining spot in the final.

After the disappointment of losing our quarter we still had to race the petite final against Richard and his Lunajets Racing Team. We managed to take the first point from Richard in the best of three series but lost the second race after being over the line at the start. In the third and final race we managed to lock Richard out at the boat end of the start and sail the shifts nicely up the first beat to extend. On the second beat Richard picked some nice shifts and closed the gap up. We were neck and neck on the final run, but after a simultaneous gybe we were able to hold Richard out until the port layline to the finish to take third overall at the Dutch Match Cup.

Canfield who was sailing clean and fast managed to dispose of Williams two - nil in the final to win the event. Congrats to Team US One for the win and a big congrats to The Dutch Match Cup for a fantastic event, particularly as it is their first time as part of the Alpari World Match Racing Tour.

Recent news: We have now packed up and moved on to our next event, The Nordic Championships in Tallinn, Estonia. Event will be followed by The Team Work Match Race in Geneva and then the penultimate event of the Alpari World Match Racing Tour the Argo Group Gold Cup in Event website