Monsoon Cup Petit Finals

by Lynn Fitzpatrick Sail-World USA Editor on 2 Dec 2007 His and Her Majesty, the King of Malaysia, the Prime Minister, other dignitaries and James Ingram stole the show at Saturday’s evening’s Pride Charity Gala Dinner for breast cancer awareness. The wind was blowing during the evening’s festivities, but slept in this morning. The initial race of the knockout round of the Monsoon Cup was sailed in a light and shifty onshore breeze with lots of holes on the playing field.

Knock out Round

Mirsky - Minoprio
Adam Minoprio took a penalty during the pre-start in a port-starboard dial up incident and watched Torvar Mirsky and his crew shift gears well and get off to the best start. Mirsky rounded the first weather mark with a 4-5 boat length lead that he carried to the first leeward mark.

In the meantime, the second race between Mathieu Richard and Jesper Radich was abandoned. Mirsky extended his lead on the way to a weather mark that was shifted to the right by the race committee. Mirsky went on to drift across the line with a healthy lead. Minoprio had to spin his turn without a headsail so that the bow would spin. Following the race, racing was cancelled for about a half hour, Malaysia’s royalty or Dato’ Peter Gilmour must have picked up the phone and put in a request with the wind deities, because the 12-15 knot sea breeze filled in beautifully.

Richard - Radich
Mathieu Richard and Jesper Radich had everyone on the rail at the start of their knockout race. Richard started up on Radich’s hip. Richard led around the top mark by less than two boat lengths and extended the lead throughout the race.

Mirsky - Richard
Mathieu Richard got the advantage in the pre-start and pushed Torvar Mirsky to the pin end of the line. Richard took off toward the right at full speed. When they came together, they were bow to bow. Mirsky continued to position his boat ahead and to leeward of Richard. Two green flags were thrown by the judges during the first beat. Mirsky called the layline impeccably and squeaked around the weather mark ahead of Richard, who had spent more time in the adverse current on the run and rounded 3-4 boat lengths behind Mirsky. Mirsky kept his lose cover and rounded the weather mark 15 seconds ahead of Richard.

Richard reeled Mirsky in on the second run and grabbed an overlap just before the leeward mark. Mirsky broke to the right gate and Richard went to the left. Richard dipped at the cross, intent on getting to the right side of the course. Both teams sailed beyond the starboard tack layline, but Mirsky rounded the mark first, but Richard’s spinnaker was whispering in his ear. Mirsky held an attacking Richard all the way back to the shed. Torvar Mirsky’s Racing Team of Kinley Fowler, Graeme Spence, Mark O’Toole and Tudur Owen ended the Monsoon Cup, a Grade 1 ISAF event, in fifth place by defeating the #1 ranked ISAF match racer coming into the Monsoon Cup.

Mirsky is certain to see his formidable ISAF ranking rise from 10th given his performance in the Monsoon Cup.

Minoprio - Radich
Adam Minoprio won his start against Jesper Radich. The pair sailed evenly around the first lap rounded the right leeward gate with a slight advantage. They were neck and neck for the next lap. This time Minoprio went right and Radich took the left gate and got a huge puff to enable him to throw in a very effective lee bow on Minoprio. The Dane and the Kiwi battled down the final run with Radich baiting Minoprio constantly.

About 200 yards from the line he gybed over the top of Minoprio to try to get the starboard advantage. Radich’s spinnaker collapsed enough to allow Minoprio to surge over the finish line and hand the America’s Cup helmsman a loss.

Petit Final – Stage Five of the Monsoon Cup

Hansen – Cian

Hansen Cian
1 0
0 1
1 0

Match 1
Bjorn Hansen handed Paolo Cian a penalty with 1:20 before the start, which set Cian on the offensive. Hansen led at the approach to the start, but Cian got his bow underneath Hansen. Hansen had to burn speed but Cian was able to luff Hansen up. The on the water umpires waved a penalty flag for each team. With the flags offsetting each other, Cian went into the race with one penalty flag to burn. Hansen led around the top mark. Cian sailed to the left of Hansen and tried to get himself in a position to disturb Hansen’s breeze. Hansen rounded the right hand gate and Cian split left with a course change to the left.

When they came together at the top third of the course, Hansen had the advantage and threw textbook covering tacks at the approach to the weather mark. Hansen extended his lead downwind while Cian broke to the right of Hansen bucking adverse current on the run. Hansen rounded well ahead of Cian and Cian tried another radical split with Hansen. Cian played the current to put Hansen in an uncomfortable position at the weather mark and Hansen hit the mark. Hansen came out of the incident with a blue flag that offset the one that Cian had been carrying throughout the race.

Cian tried to make an aggressive gybe to protect the right hand side, but Hansen caught him off guard and luffed him up. Hansen had to swallow another flag with less than 200 yards remaining in the race. Hansen won the first race.

Match 2

Cian blasted off the starting line in the second match with full speed and favored the bottom left. Hansen went right in breeze. Hansen tacked to the right and tried to keep the right hand advantage, but each time the boats came together, the best Hansen could do was a tack to leeward and ahead. At the top Cian was able to get to the right.

The wind and the course shifted left during the run and the Cian chose the left mark. Hansen tried to go into get inside Cian, but copped a yellow flag along with a red flag for barging in without rights and gaining an unfair advantage, meaning that Hansen had to clear the penalty immediately. Cian went ahead and sailed the rest of the race unchallenged by Hansen.

Match 3

Bjorn Hansen and Paolo Cian had an exciting final race and stayed within two boat lengths of each other throughout their race for third place in the Monsoon Cup. Paolo Cian was overlapped with Bjorn Hansen at the finish, but it just wasn’t enough. Bjorn Hansen took third place in the Monsoon Cup and Cian and Team Shosholosa were fourth.