It was a day for patience at the Stena Match Cup Sweden, the third event of the 2012 Alpari World Match Racing Tour. On the evening of the first day, the YANMAR Racing team sat atop the leaderboard with four wins. The second qualifying session opened very slowly, with no wind out on the water and for Peter Gilmour (AUS, skipper) and his YANMAR Racing team, no scheduled racing until the fourth flight of the day.
Things finally got underway when the sea breeze started up in the early afternoon and flights seven, eight and nine were ticked off the slate in the first couple of hours. And then it was time for the YANMAR Racing team to go sailing, but in very different conditions to yesterday – just five to eight knots of wind.
They had a tough opponent in Ian Williams, reigning Tour Champion and a man who had been undefeated at this year’s Stena Match Cup Sweden; until he had taken a shock loss in flight nine to the local wild card entry, 23 year old Victor Ogeman.
YANMAR Racing’s French tactician Fred Guilmin takes up the story. “It was always going to be a tight race against Ian [Williams] and we had a good strategy for the start and the first beat, which we talked about and kept focussed on. We wanted to start close to Ian’s leeward side and to control the left-hand side of the race course, and Peter [Gilmour] did a great job of doing that.”
“But then we got some traffic, » Guilmin continued, « and had to duck behind Reuben Corbett, losing us a boat length. We still just crossed in front of Ian Williams and we held that narrow lead to the top mark. But then as we rounded with Corbett just ahead of us, we fell into his bad air [coming off his sails]. Ian managed to do two gybes and put us in his bad air as well, giving him a great attacking position… and he got past us before the end of the leg. And that was it, we lost – so Corbett hurt us today.”
The wind disappeared again shortly afterwards and racing was abandoned for the rest of the day. But Fred Guilmin was philosophical, after all, it was only one race. “There are still seven matches to race, so we haven’t even done half of the round robin yet. We must stay focussed, and we must score maximum points so we can choose an opponent in the quarter-final [higher ranked teams in qualifying choose their opponents in the next rounds]. It’s good for confidence, and to get the right opponent for the conditions. And we have been sailing smoothly, there are some things to improve – like avoiding bad luck, tomorrow it must be on our side!”
YANMAR Racing currently sit in sixth place with their four wins, but it’s very tight with a total of six skippers on either four or five points. Qualifying will resume at 09:00 CET on the 4th July, and YANMAR Racing will be up against local hero Johnie Berntsson in the first flight. Berntsson has two wins from his five races.
Qualifying Leaderboard after Day Two
1. Keith Swinton 5-0 = 5pts
2. Björn Hansen 5-0 = 5pts
3. Ian Williams 5-1 = 5pts
4. Pierre-Antoine Morvan 4-1 = 4pts
5. Phil Robertson 4-2 = 4pts
6. Peter Gilmour 4-2 = 4pts
7. Joachim Aschenbrenner 3-2 = 3pts
8. Johnie Berntsson 2-3 = 2pts
9. Laurie Jury 2-4 = 2pts
10. Staffan Lindberg 1-4 = 1pts
11. Simone Ferrarese 1-5 = 1pts
12. Victor Ogeman 1-5 = 1pts
13. Reuben Corbett 1-5 = 1pts
14. Torvar Mirsky 1-5 = 1pts