Korea Match Cup Finals

After a day of semi-finals that grew in pace and excitement, Sunday (7 June started flat, grey and uninteresting, and looked like staying that way. The start of the finals match between Williams and Cian was scheduled for 1400 hrs, but the race course was just a grey glass-out with no sign of any breeze at all – not even the small shifty zephyrs that had allowed the 5th-8th place sail-offs go through. Playing a waiting game out on the water, Cian was working hard to stay optimistic – if the finals were canned due to lack of breeze then the Korea Match Cup would be decided on the performances in the Round Robin – handing a win to Ian Williams (8 pts) against the Italian’s five wins that allowed him to just squeak into the quarter-finals. At 1450 hrs there was some sign of sunshine – an ingredient that encouraged a little sea breeze. Cian put up a spinnaker and sailed around slowly, as if to demonstrate to the Race Committee that there was enough breeze to get things started, and at 1530 hrs racing did indeed get under way.

Both boats hit the line together for a split-tack start with Cian going to the right. Williams gybe-set for a separation, found some pressure on the right and smoked into the bottom pin. But Williams then earned a penalty. Williams crossed ahead of Cian on the upwind leg, but had to execute his penalty. So Cian sailed gently down to his seventh win in a row.

Race 2 began with a slow motion dial-up. Both boats started together on port, Cian at the boat end. Williams went right, and led all the way down the run. Williams crossed Cian from the right coming into the finish and gybed into the line. Match squared at 1-1.

With one-all, the third race was a sudden death. Cian calmly controlled most of the pre-start, with Williams wriggling to get away. Williams started with pace, and split away to the right, followed by Cian. Williams went for the gybe-set plit-and-come-back-from-the-right option, but just couldn’t find enough breeze to make it work, and watched the soft-touch Italian ghost across the line 15 secs or so in the lead.

At US$240,000, the Korea Match Cup is the richest purse on the World Match Race Tour. A good deal more champagne was soon sprayed on stage in front of the Closing Ceremony crowd, and the giant cheques were presented by the Governor of Gyeonggi Province, Kim Moon-Soo. It had been a desperately slow start to the day, but it finished in cracking style.

OVERALL RESULTS
1st Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza
2nd Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
3rd Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
4th Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard
5th Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
6th Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
7th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing
8th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
9th Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge
10th Laurie Jury (NZL)
11th Philippe Presti (ITA) French Match Racing Team
12th Byeong Ki Park (KOR)

Korea Semi Finals

The next day more costly turnarounds and huge drama marked the penultimate day of the Korea Match Cup. Unbeatable on Friday, ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing Adam Minoprio suffered three straight defeats in his quarter final races against Team Shosholoza’s Paolo Cian, putting him out of the competition. With the wind starting light and getting lighter until the sea breeze pumped up mid-afternoon, Minoprio found himself forced over the line early in the first race and infuriatingly repeated this in the second. 2-2 and for the decider it was gloves off. Minoprio picked up a penalty in the pre-start, but crossed the line with a four boatlength lead. But the Italian closed in and finally overhauled Minoprio on the second beat.

For TEAMORIGIN’s Ben Ainslie the day was very black and white. The quarter finals against France’s Mathieu Richard, Ainslie won two-one. However when he came up against Paolo Cian in the semis, Ainslie was dispatched three-zero, including a sorry first race when he had the race sewn up in the start, leading and a penalty up on Cian, only to suffer a wrap on his genniker on the second run, followed by a short trawl of it allowing Cian enough margin to overtake and successfully complete his penalty to take the point.

Ian Williams and his Bahrain Team Pindar started the day in the quarter finals level pegging, 1-1, with Torvar Mirsky and their series went to the full five races. In the second race there was a dramatic prang at the weather mark when Williams careered into the back of Mirsky’s boat. In the third race Williams’ boat looked a little lethargic in the pre-start and after Mirsky won the start they sailed a little way up the course before dropping their sails and hoisting their red flag. Finally Williams and his crew made it through to the semis where they were pitched against Bjorn Hansen, who had seen off Peter Gilmour in the quarter finals despite Hansen sailing with a mostly amateur crew. In their second semi-final race, Hansen lost to Williams. The wind had picked up unusually for the third race and after a long dive down into the start box Hansen led off the line. Hansen was ultimately black flagged for not having carried out either of his penalties soon enough.

Semi Final Results
Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza 3-0
Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar 3.5-2
Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing 2-3.5
Ben Ainslie (GBR) TeamOrigin 0-3

Korea Quarter Finals

While America’s Cup legend Peter Gilmour was the class act of the first two days of racing at the Korea Match Cup, on 5 June it was Emirates Team New Zealand’s Adam Minoprio who got on to a strong winning streak, with a run of eight races and just one loss. In conditions similar to yesterday with the sun burning through early morning mist, followed by a light 8 knot sea breeze establishing itself, so in winning four of his five remaining races in the round robin put Minoprio on eight points out of eleven matches. This equalled him with Britons Ben Ainslie of Team Origin and Bahrain Team Pindar’s Ian Williams and, unexpectedly, Sweden’s Bjorn Hansen. In the first-to-three quarter final, Minoprio and his team were the only ones to end the day with 2-0 wins.

Minoprio chose Team Shosholoza’s Paolo Cian as his quarter final opponent, while Williams picked Torvar Mirsky. In both races Minoprio won the start from Cian and led around the course.

QUARTER FINAL PAIRINGS

Minoprio v Cian 2-0

Williams v Mirsky 1-1

Gilmour v Hansen 1-1

Ainslie v Richard 0-0

Korea Match Cup

Today 4 June the 12 teams through a full day, completing a further twelve of the 22 flights. When racing got underway at 1000, the conditions were not looking promising with the breeze light and the fog leaving the top mark obscured. However, come the fourth flight the sun had finally burned off the fog and a good 13-14 knot sea breeze had established itself until the last flights at the end of the afternoon. Peter Gilmour had a glamour day and at the end of day two his YANMAR Racing team looked set to be the only unbeaten team. With seven wins and no losses, all was looking good until the final flight when in a tight match that saw two lead changes in the dying breeze, he was finally beaten by Ben Ainslie and his TeamOrigin crew. Ainslie has now sailed all his races in the round robin finishing with eight wins in 11 matches. Among the scalps Gilmour claimed today was Ian Williams. Like Gilmour, Williams has still to sail his three final races. Mirsky also had a lively race against K-Challenge America’s Cup helm Sebastien Col with both sides picking up pre-start penalties, the first against the Australian for erring too close to an obstruction and the second against Col as the two boats separated on the start line and his stern touched the Aussie boat.

Korea Match Cup

In front of thousands spectators lining the shoreline, Sebastian Col (FRA) and his K Challenge/French Match Racing Team and Ian Williams (GBR) and his Team Pindar each defeated their Quarter and Semi-Final opponents on 14 June to qualify to battle each other in next day's Final round of the Korea Match Cup. The warm dry offshore breeze remained brisk enough for PRO David Tallis to set short multiple-lap courses across the harbor, with the windward mark placed just metres away from the spectator pontoon, giving everyone a front row seat to the mark-rounding action. But later this stability waned, and the shifts and puffs trended right into a light seabreeze by mid-afternoon, before caving in and blowing again offshore. Few leads were safe in these conditions, and even with courses’ short legs and multiple laps there were plenty of passing lanes available for the observant…and lucky. In the Semi-Finals, Col met Jesper Radich (DEN) of the Rudy Project Sailing Team, a tough opponent and former Tour champion, where the Dane took the first win from him after he was given the double indignity of being called over early and given a penalty for not keeping clear. But in the next three matches Col mastered the starts and never allowed Radich to pass, which was a remarkable feat given the shifty conditions on the course. In a fabulous display of match race talent played in front of tens of thousands of spectators at the Korea International Boat Show and live TV beamed to 90 countries, Sebastian Col (FRA). In a first-to-three point Final sailed in shifty, puffy conditions, Col defeated Ian Williams (GBR) and Team Pindar in four tough matches filled at times with collisions, penalties, and numerous lead changes from pre-start to finish.

Korea Match Cup

After a day spent trouncing many of their elder rivals, it appears that some relative newcomers to the World Match Racing Tour are now well on their way to securing berths in the next Quarter Final stage of the Korea Match Cup. Adam Minoprio (NZL) and his Emirates Team New Zealand/Black Match Racing has amassed eight points thus far in the Round Robin, second only on a tie-break to Jesper Radich (DEN) and his Rudy Project Sailing Team, while Torvar Mirsky (AUS) and his Mirsky Racing Team currently lie in third. Radich secures his spot in the next round on his impressive 8-3 record. The match race action started slowly, as a weak westerly seabreeze gave PRO David Tallis and his race management team fits until after lunch when the shift went right and the breeze built to a perfect 12 knots. Besides seeing some of the younger talent achieve some upsets on the race course, these spectators were also treated to seeing some of the world’s most seasoned match racers display their skills in close, hard-fought battles against one another.