Mirsky defeats Richard and wins Manu Minard trophy

'Mirsky Racing Team wins - Internationaux de France' Mirsky Racing Team

Kinley Fowler from the Mirsky Racing Team reports on the final day of the Internationaux de France. MRT was triumphant over Mathieu Richard.

Our favourite event has come to an end with us once again taking home the Manu Minard memorial trophy. It is good to look back at this week with only three losses, especially when facing the World number one Mathieu Richard in his home town.

We woke up this morning still with the hurdle of the semi finals to overcome. A small windshift at the start put us in a strong position over Peter Wibroe, and we managed to capitalise on our advantage with our superior upwind speed. Wibroe and his Danish team put up a strong fight, but we sailed defensively to take out the series 3-0.

After a short break, we left the dock once again to face off against Mathieu Richard and his French Sailing Team, who had defeated fellow Frenchman Damien Iehl 3-1 to qualify. Our first race ran smoothly, winning the start and extending our lead, however it was clear that Richard's downwind tactics and speed were stronger than ours, as he closed the gap up to a mere half boatlength at the finishing line. The next race didn't run quite as smoothly as we had hoped, when Richard once more displayed his downwind dominance, catching up to us and giving us a red flag penalty at the bottom mark. Despite making some small gains upwind, Richard didn't give us any opportunity to pass and brought the scores to 1-1.

MRT - Internationaux de France - Mirsky Racing Team

In the third race, we got Richard back with a double penalty after he barged inside without any rights. This once again put us in a comfortable lead, with Richard still having one penalty to clear. With this advantage, we put the scores back in our favour.

The fourth and final race was ours for the taking, and we jumped at every opportunity to make a gain. We lost the start, and were forced to make two short tacks to attack Richard's lead. Once we had positioned ourselves in a clear lane, we went hard to get our upwind groove on, and got the next cross on Richard. Once again we sailed smart and fast, extending our lead to win the Internationaux de France Manu Minard Trophy for the second year in a row, giving Graeme Spence the perfect Birthday present.

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