Mirsky Racing Team well placed - Monsoon Cup Day 2

2:46 PM Thu 4 Dec 2008 GMT

'Mirsky and Cian prestart on Day 2.Monsoon Cup 2008' Sail-World.com/ AUS &copy Click Here to view large photo

Kinley Fowler reports on Day two of the Monsoon Cup, being sailed in Malaysia.

Monsoon Cup Day Two

With tricky winds and rapid current, day two proved to be a more challenging day for us, but with solid crew work and consistent communication we were able to come out of the day on top, finishing up with 6 wins and 2 losses.

We had two big grudge matches today against the fellow Perth team Black Swan Racing headed by Keith Swinton, and New Zealand's Adam Minoprio and his Blackmatch Racing. Both races fired up on all cylinders, but we were only able to outsail Swinton, as Minoprio's team sailed smooth and fast after already winning the start to take it out.

Tomorrow holds some big races for us as we still have to face Williams, Col, and the big gun Peter Gilmour. Although we are sitting comfortably in 3rd place, we still have a lot of racing to do. Thankfully we have a strong foundation to build on and are taking positive steps in the right direction to taking this one out.

For more updates, visit www.monsooncup.com.myor www.worldmatchracingtour.comor to follow the action live, visit www.sail.tv/?cid=708

A special thanks to Line7, Harken and the Royal Perth Yacht Club for their support

Day One

With teams tied at the top end of the leaderboard, and three teams still in the running to be crowned as World Champions, it is all coming down to the wire here in Malaysia as the World Tour Final begins to unfold. We started better than we could ask for, taking out both of our races today.

We jumped on the boat after the first race of the day had already been completed to face recent Olympic Gold Medallist and Male Sailor of the Year, Ben Ainslie and his Team Origin. The current was playing a big factor in the racing as the wind direction meant that two rivers were flowing onto the race course. Fortunately we were able to get the start we wanted and made some big gains to lead around the first top mark, however Ainslie sucked us in to gibing directly into the worst area of tide and made us work hard to keep our lead to the bottom mark. We learnt from our mistakes however, and managed to extend our lead to take out the first race.

The second race didn't go as smoothly with world number 1 Mathieu Richard punishing us at the start. We managed to push hard, and were allowed to split right. With the tide helping us we caught up at the top mark, and with the starboard advantage we managed to round ahead. With our knowledge from the previous race, we were able to defend our position well and lead throughout to finish the day with two solid races under our belt.

A special thanks to Line7, Harken and the Royal Perth Yacht Club for their support.