WMRT Match Race France - Good win for YANMAR Racing on tough first day

by YANMAR Racing Media on 12 May 2011 Blues skies and light breezes greeted skippers today in Marseille at Match Race France, the start of the nine event 2011 World Match Racing Tour.

Light winds are expected for the first four days of this event and with strong 40 knot Mistral winds forecast for Sunday, organisers were keen to get plenty of racing completed on day 1.

The first match for the 2011 WMRT season pitted four times World Match Racing Champion Peter Gilmour (AUS) and his YANMAR Racing crew of Cameron Dunn, Thierry Douillard, Yasuhiro Yaji against twice Tour Winner Ian Williams' Team GAC Pindar. Williams is in excellent early season form after wins in the Congressional Cup in March and the VIII Open de Espana last week.

With a 7-8 knot westerly blowing Williams won the start, taking the right. Williams rounded the top mark ahead of Gilmour who had picked up a port- starboard penalty. Gilmour closed up but could not get past his British rival and with the penalty still in play, Williams took the win.

YANMAR Racing's second match was against Swede Bjorn Hansen (Mekonomen Sailing Team). A good start by Gilmour from the favoured left side of the course, he led by three lengths at the top mark and held on to win.

By Flight 5 the wind was picking up and was 10-12 knots as Gilmour faced Phil Robertson (WAKA Racing). Robertson led Gilmour at the top mark, however Robertson was carrying a penalty from the pre-start for gybing too close to Gilmour. By the second run Robertson had a good lead, he was able to drop his spinnaker and complete his penalty on the line before Gilmour crossed. A win to the young Kiwi.

YANMAR Racing's next match was against Pierre Antoine Morvan (Extreme Team Morbihan). Gilmour won the start and led from the top mark to the finish. YANMAR Racing's flight seven match was against Francesco Bruni from Mascalzone Latino. Bruni won the start and in his favourite light air conditions sailed away with the match.

Double disaster in the match against Bertrand Pace (Aleph Sailing Team). A pre-start penalty for Gilmour who had come into the box too early then hit the pin, handing Pace the lead. The French veteran sailed clear for the win.

Their best was saved for last, in flight nine. YANMAR Racing's opponent was Damien Iehl's French Match Racing Team, who was on a hot streak having won his first five matches in 2011. Gilmour won the start and left Iehl with a penalty. The wind dropped even further. Gilmour had a strong lead at the first spinnaker drop and with Iehl still carrying the outstanding penalty, Gilmour was not headed. An excellent win for YANMAR Racing.

YANMAR Racing Trimmer Thierry Douillard was smiling dockside as he talked about the day. ‘Light winds and choppy out there today. It made for interesting racing. We could easily have finished today with a better result as we generally had good starts. The French crews are very used to this boat (J80), it’s quite tricky for us … so we were pleased to finish the day with a good win against Damien Iehl and we will get better.'

Peter Gilmour was relaxed. ‘It’s great to back on the World Match Racing Tour, it's been a long while since last December. Today was a very big first day, nine flights in total and seven for us.

'We were generally pretty happy with the way things were going, these are tricky little boats, but we were sailing smoothly. In that last race the breeze was starting to back off, it was good racing.

‘It is still early in the round robin and we are looking forward to the rest of the round robin and hopefully onwards from there.’

For more news and information on YANMAR Racing, please visit http://www.yanmar.co.jp/en/racing/

To discover more about the World Match Racing Tour see http://www.wmrt.com

And to discover more about YANMAR Marine go to http://www.yanmarmarine.com/