World Match Racing Tour: Strong local field stacked in Newport
by Ben Blake 19 May 2018 05:12 PDT
21-23 May 2018
2016 World Match Racing Tour Newport RI © Ian Roman
With the final two entries to this year's GKSS Match Cup Sweden going to the top two finishers in Newport next week, we look at who will be representing Team USA at the World-famous venue for Newport Match Cup.
Local Interest
Jeremy Wilmot is flying the flag not only for Team USA at this event, but for his hometown and host city of Newport. Local knowledge will certainly come in to play on this tight race course. Jeremy's last WMRT appearance was at the 2017 Miami double-header, where he finished sixth and fourth at the Miami Match Cup and Coconut Grove Cup respectively. Against others competing at the Newport Match Cup, Wilmot has a strong win ratio and looks on form for one of the qualification spots.
Chris Poole, who resides just down the US east coat in New York State, is another regular sailing out of Newport. "Knowing the trends in the breeze throughout the day will be the biggest local factor as well as the tide, depending on the location of the race course." Said Poole, continuing, "The team has just bought our own M32 and this will definitely give us an added confidence and drive going into the competition next week."
Chris will also have match racing momentum on his side, albeit from a very different style of sailing, as he has just returned home from Bermuda where he competed at the Argo Group Gold Cup.
Closing out the local lineup is young skipper Markus Edegran, also from New York. Markus flew on to the Tour last year and made a heavy impact at qualifiers across the globe. His debut on the Championship level season came in Chicago, where sadly for the team results did not go as planned. Shortly after that event, the team acquired their own M32 and have been active in the M32 Miami Winter Series. The extra practice in this high-performance catamaran will undoubtedly pay off for the team and could be the boost they need to win one of the hottest tickets in sailing this summer.
Join Them
There are still entry places available for next week's Newport Match Cup, and your team could join the international field fighting against Wilmot, Poole and Edegran. Or are you local? Why not sign up to represent Team USA to create an even more formidable local front in Newport.
To register interest, contact Mattias.dahlstrom@astonharald.com