Youth Match Racing World Championship - Day 4
by Lucile Troel 23 Jul 2022 12:52 NZST
17-23 July 2022
On the programme for the fourth day of racing in this Youth Match Racing World Championship was the end of the quarter finals, the semi-finals and the King of the Castle phase, all of which will determine the final overall ranking for the championship.
There was precious little breeze this morning in the bay of Pornichet (7 to 8 knots of NNE'ly, easing to 4 or 5 knots), but the Race Committee nevertheless managed to launch the last of the quarter finals. The crews who qualified for the first of the semi-finals were Thimoté Polet - who had beaten the Australian Finn Tapper 3 - 0 - competing against Swede Marius Westerlind, who secured a score of 3 - 0 against Ian Garreta. The second semi-final pitted Frenchman Timothée Rossi, who'd beaten Dane Emil Kjaer 3 - 0, against American Jeffrey Petersen, who came out on top of a much tighter match against Italian Riccardo Sepe (3 - 2).
At the same time, the organisation was able to launch a phase called King of the Castle, where the 12th competitor in the round robin competes against the 11th in a one-point match. Following this, the winner of the latter did battle with the 10th competitor in the round robin and so on. The results of this King of the Castle phase determine the final overall ranking in the Youth Match Racing World Championship for those ranked 5th to 12th.
At 13:00 UTC, the wind put in an appearance once again, giving the Race Committee around ten knots of NW'ly wind to play with as they kicked off the semi-finals and continued the King of the Castle, which ultimately saw Frenchman Ian Garreta take the win, earning him fifth place in the final overall ranking. Unfortunately, the fickle wind was shifting constantly, forcing the organisation team to reposition the course on multiple occasions and preventing the Race Committee from completing the semi-finals. This evening, Thimoté Polet and Marius Westerlind left the racetrack on a score of 2 - 1 in favour of the Swede, and Timothée Rossi and Jeffrey Petersen exited the race zone on 2 - 1 in favour of the American. From tomorrow morning, we'll round off the semi-finals. Once the scores are in from this, it'll be time to decide the winner of 3rd and 4th place and then the grand final will decide the Youth Match Racing World Champion 2022.
Impressions
Thimoté Polet (FRA)
"This evening we're leading 2 - 1. Conditions for the semis were very random and very fickle between the various fronts rolling through, but that's the name of the game. The Swedes were better than us in this phase. We're not worried as we know that we have the speed and the technique, and we know we have the match racing phases nailed! Now we need to continue raising our game to earn our spot in the final!"
Marius Westerlind (SWE)
"We're happy. We've really made good progress with our start phases and our racing speed in the races here. We were a bit unlucky today in the second race of the semi-final, but we're heading ashore with the lead, which is good news! For tomorrow, the plan is to take one race at a time and try to score the third point, which will give us our ticket to the final. From that point, we'll have a good chance of bagging the title!"
Timothée Rossi (FRA)
"We're motivated this evening, despite the score. We had a great start with a superb victory sailed with panache. After that we weren't so lucky in the next two matches due, I think, to a lack of clear-headedness and aggressiveness at the starts. There's only one point separating us so it's certainly all to play for. Tomorrow's plan is the same as it is every day: take one match at a time, head out onto the water, warm up, look at the breeze and claw back metre after metre. I'm convinced we'll pull level on the scoreboard and have a game 5!"
Jeffrey Petersen (USA)
"It's always a great day to head back to shore with an extra point for yourself! Ultimately, all the teams still in the running are strong and it's the semi-finals so anything can happen. It really wasn't easy. Everyone's quick, but we'll give it everything we've got. We'll get some good rest this evening, sleep well, eat well, and we'll come back even more aggressively tomorrow!"
Full results available here.