The action started slowly at the fifth event on the 2012 Alpari World Match Racing Tour, the St Moritz Match Race. Teams, race officials, umpires and spectators were all ready for the first qualifying session to kick-off at 11am, but the normally consistent Maloya mountain wind refused to start its journey up the Engadine valley and head to the lake. It eventually made an appearance after a late lunch, and the first flight got underway at 2.30pm.
YANMAR Racing started with a serious challenge – overall Tour leader, Bjorn Hansen. The team’s tactician, Frenchman Fred Guilmin explained, “At the last event in Sweden, we lost 3-0 to Bjorn so it’s been a while since we had a win against him.” Working with skipper Peter Gilmour (AUS), Guilmin engineered a start close to the left-hand side of Hansen – anticipating that they could control the left-hand side of the race course from there, which they believed to be favoured.
They were right, the team led at the early exchanges and were ahead at the first mark by 6 lengths. “It was tricky though,” admitted Guilmin, and they got the wrong side of the wind on the third leg, allowing Hansen to close to within a boat length, before YANMAR Racing pulled out on the fourth and final leg to win by four lengths.
The next opponent was another Swede – Johnie Berntsson, and this time YANMAR Racing lost the start after manoeuvring in very light winds and losing too much speed, while their opponent kept his momentum. Berntsson was able to use the extra speed to pick the start he wanted and he chose the same starting tactic that Gilmour had used so effectively against Hansen, with the same result – a comfortable win to Berntsson.
YANMAR Racing’s final opponent of the qualifying session was local boy Jérôme Clerc – this time Gilmour and co. got the favoured left-hand side off the starting line, and once again it resulted in a comfortable win. Fred Guilmin was happy with their day, and an opening account of two wins and one loss. “The feeling of the team is good, we have a good spirit, this is a hard place to sail, and we know we will win some and lose some.”
Only a couple of teams have so far managed to win them all, the New Zealander Laurie Jury tops the leaderboard with a remarkable five-nil scoreline, with Berntsson in second after adding two more wins to his victory over YANMAR Racing.
The action went on until 7pm, and finished on flight eight, so there’s still a long way to go. The race committee were anxious to maintain the schedule though, as after a forecast for a stronger 15 knot Maloya wind tomorrow, things turn sour with single-digit temperatures and rain. It’s to be hoped that there’s some wind with that rain.
The St Moritz Match Cup is the fifth event on this year’s Alpari World Match Racing Tour and is held in St Moritz from the 28th August to the 2nd September.
