BlackMatch still in the mix at Germany Match

by BlackMatch Media on 30 May 2009 BlackMatch Racing reports from the German MatchRace, Day 2:

Greetings again from BlackMatch,

Day 2 of racing and conditions were great for sailing here in Langenargen, spectacular blue skies with a light offshore 8 knot breeze made for some exciting racing, while the extremely shifty conditions caught out many of the world’s best. We were not exempt from this and had our chance to go unbeaten today, however while leading a rampant Francesco Bruni on the final upwind we were caught on the wrong side of a 50 degree wind shift that came from nowhere and had to settle for a total scorecard of 4 wins 4 losses. Our wins today came against local talent Carsten Kemmling and Swiss sailor Eric Monin, while other results went our way meaning we are still in the hunt for the top 6 position that will see us proceed through, currently lying in 5th.

In our race against Bruni who is on fire at this regatta, we were in control of the pre-start and got the start we were after, however both boats were judged to be over and had to return to the start line which handed the Italian a narrow advantage. We fought back hard up the first beat and came out better in a tacking duel near the top mark to gain a one boat length lead going into the first downwind. We defended our lead going into the next upwind leg however after a small split the Italian team got an unbelievable wind shift at the perfect time and our lead was gone, along with it our chance of victory.

Despite a tough start to this event we are still very much in the competition and tomorrow we have three ‘must win’ matches against the world number one Sebastian Col, World number 4 Torvar Mirsky and defending champion Damien Iehl. We are looking forward the challenge ahead of us and remain confident we can get through to the later stages of the regatta.

For all media coverage on this event please visit www.worldmatchracingtour.com or www.matchrace.de .

BlackMatch would like to again thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 New Zealand, these two world renowned companies have stood by us and made this possible. We would also like to thank our yacht club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Emirates Team New Zealand, as without their support we would not have this opportunity.

Results

Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Team 7-1
Francesco Bruni (ITA) Team Joe Fly 6.5-1
Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing 5.66-2
Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar 5-3
Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing 4-4
Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard 4-4
Sébastien Col (FRA) French Team/K-Challenge 4-4
Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin 3-5