Elated Gilmour King of the Monsoon Cup

by Tracey Johnstone on 7 Dec 2008 Challenged on every part of the race course through four very tough races, Gilmour and his team of Yasuhiro Yaji, Rod Dawson, Thierry Douillard and Kazuhiko Sofuku, are deserved winners of the 2008 Monsoon Cup.

After several months of leading the Monsoon Cup event management team, Gilmour then had to turn around and focus his energies on the competition. It is a testament to the skills of this sailor that he was able to make the seamless move from Race Advisor to successful skipper.

'I feel very elated. It has been a long few months for us to pull the event together and then the deck was pretty well stacked against me for doing well here. I have tremendous crew here, which kept me concentrating, kept me sailing. They are not too hard on me when I make basic mistakes like running into committee boats and just keep me rolling along.

'Clearly we were very lucky to be in the final. We probably did not deserve to be on the race course, but here we are and we won the final.

'The result is great for 2009. We look forward to going on the tour and being a part of all that. It is very exciting,' a clearly delighted Gilmour said.

Gilmour had a tough trip to the top, finishing tied on five wins with Sebastien Col, Magnus Holmberg and Ben Ainslie at the end of the round robin series. On a count-back Gilmour went through to the quarter finals where he raced Col, winning his semi final place after five hard and at times, controversial matches.

The semi final for Gilmour was an extraordinary situation where his opponent was 22-year-old Torvar Mirsky, a one-time match racing student of Gilmour’s. It was a battle of wits, skill and experience which saw Gilmour dominate the matches to win 3-0.

In the finals he sailed against the other 'young gun on the tour Adam Minoprio and his BlackMatch team and again dominating with a 3-0 result.

2008 ISAF Match Racing World Championship

Ian Williams has taken out the 2008 ISAF Match Racing World Championship ahead of Sebastien Col (French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge) in second place and Mathieu Richard (French Match Racing Team/French Spirit) in the third.

Petite Finals

In the Petite Final Torvar Mirsky (Mirsky Racing Team) and recently anointed Match Racing World Champion, Ian Williams (Bahrain Team Pindar), took to the water to redress their semi final losses as they both refocused and looked to finish third in the event. A tough battle ensued between the two with Mirsky dominating both matches to take out third place Monsoon Cup honours.

5th to 8th Knockout

Match 1 - Paolo Cian d Magnus Holmberg
Match 2 - Sebastien Col d Mathieu Richard
Match 3 - Paolo Cian d Sebastien Col (5th – 6th)
Match 4 - Magnus Holmberg d Mathieu Richard (7th – 8th)

Overall Monsoon Cup Results

The overall results in the Monsoon Cup are –
1 – Peter Gilmour, Yanmar Racing (AUS)
2 – Adam Minoprio, ETNZ/Black Match Racing (NZL)
3 – Torvar Mirsky, Mirsky Racing Team (AUS)
4 – Ian Williams, Bahrain Team Pindar (GBR)
5 - Paolo Cian, Team Shosholoza (ITA)
6 - Sebastien Col, French Match Racing Team / K-Challenge (FRA)
7 - Magnus Holmberg, Victory Challenge (SWE)
8 - Mathieu Richard, French Match Racing Team / French Spirit (FRA)
9 - Ben Ainslie, Team Origin (GBR)
10 - Keith Swinton, Black Swan Racing (AUS)
11 - Johnie Berntsson, Berntsson Sailing Team (SWE)
12 - Nurul Ain bt.Md Isa, Perak Sailing Team (MAS)

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