9:52 AM Thu 13 Oct 2011 GMT
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'Flight one of the 2011 Argo Group Gold Cup saw True Blue Racing take on Bjorn Hansen (SWE) - Argo Group Gold Cup'
Jordan Reece
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The King Edward VII Gold Cup presented at the Argo Group Gold Cup is the oldest match racing trophy in the world for competition involving one-design yachts. It is a highly prestigious trophy rich in tradition and attracts the largest fleet of competitors on the World Match Racing Tour every year.
Twenty one teams are invited to the event with three spots remaining for the winners of the Bermuda Match Racing Nationals, The Knickerbocker Cup and the Grade two Detroit Cup. The Argo Group Gold Cup marks the seventh and penultimate round the of the 2011 World Match Racing Tour with only one final event remaining for the title after Bermuda. For True Blue Racing this year's Gold Cup marked the team's first appearance on the World Match Racing Tour.
True Blue Racing were invited to the Argo Group Gold Cup after an epic win in the team's second ever Grade 2 match race event - the 2011 Detroit Cup and with the team all under the age of twenty, we were the youngest team competing at the event. The Gold Cup is the biggest event on the World Tour. All nine tour card holders were present at this year's event plus other world class teams. Looking around the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club all you could see was world class sailors. Francesco Bruni, Peter Gilmour, Torvar Mirsky, Ian Williams, Jesper Radich, Damien Iehl, Bjorn Hansen and Mathieu Richard, all past winners of a World Match Racing Tour event were competing.
The team took to Bermuda not expecting to win, not even expecting to win a race but to race, learn and experience from the best and that's exactly what we did. On Monday October 3rd the twenty four teams took to the water for a practice sail on board the International One Design boats used for the competition. The IODs are a very old, heavy and slow reacting boat putting an emphasis on sail trim to be able to get around the course cleanly and fast. For True Blue Racing the boats were like nothing else they had previously sailed. With such a large amount of teams competing, the format for this match racing event is quite different from any other. The twenty four teams are split into three groups of eight, True Blue Racing were placed in group one alongside some of the biggest names in match racing including Francesco Bruni, Bjorn Hansen, Jesper Radich and Stephan Lindberg.
The opening day of competition saw very un-Bermudian weather with rain clouds and a soft breeze across the island. The round robin draw saw us up against the 'big guns' in our group meaning we would have to perform a bit of magic to pull off an early upset in our World Match Racing Tour debut. Fortunately race one didn't go so bad, although we didn't come away with the win we continued to challenge Bjorn Hansen around the race course and proved to be quite fast in the IODs with a little more work needed in the pre-start. Unfortunately only one race was completed on the opening day.
We were even happier with our performance when at the press conference Bjorn Hansen commented about True Blue Racing: 'We had a really good race against Jordan Reece; they made it very tough for us during the whole race and really made us work to keep the lead. I believe they will be a team we (the World Match Racing Tour) will be seeing a lot in the future'. Being behind schedule the race committee decided to start with Group 2 on day two. Better conditions saw a stronger breeze and with the morning off we took the time to watch the other teams race to learn as much as we could before we would take to the water in the afternoon. Late in the afternoon Group one took to the water for three matches, we were up against Francesco Bruni, Jesper Radich and Stephan Lindberg, again all very tough competition. We again had some close racing but the experience of these teams having all previously sailed the Gold Cup, allowed them to make small gains around the course.
At this stage the results from our group saw the top four teams dominate the bottom teams and by the end of day two we could not make it to the next stage of the Gold Cup but still had three more races to complete before our time was done. Having raced against the top teams on our group day three was our best opportunity to put some points on the board but with races still against Blythe Walker, a local sailor who has been doing the Gold Cup for the past 19 years, Keith Swinton, ranked 14th in the world and Polish match racer Jacob Pawluk we were still not in the clear. Local sailor Blythe Walker taught up just how to make these boats go fast and with still a lack of experience in the boats by us sailed away for the win. Our next two races were some of the closest of the competition. Higher ranked and third time Gold Cup sailor Keith Swinton held the early lead but we came back sailing fast and in phase with the shifts to close the gap right up but again a slow reaction by us in a luff saw the boats masts hit and we copped a penalty, although we did not agree with the call. We managed to extend out a good lead on the second lap and did our penalty at the top mark but the slow turning and acceleration of the IODs allowed Swinton to gain an inside overlap from where he held us out turned downwind and sailed away for the win. Our final race was again a close one, unfortunately we picked up a penalty in the pre-start in a situation we and spectators were wondering how we got a penalty, but we regrouped and shut Pawluk out at the committee boat to take the lead. We were unable to stretch out a decent lead to complete the penalty so instead we slowed up to engage with Pawluk. We manage to control him down the final run and pushed him out to the left hand side of the course where we tricked him into a gybe and a port and starboard situation. In what we and again spectators thought was a clear penalty on Pawluk, the umpires green flagged the situation meaning no penalty and gifted Pawluk the win.
Unfortunately for us this meant we did not manage to win a race at the Argo Group Gold Cup, but yet it was one of the best regatta experiences the team has done. We met a lot of very good sailors and organizers who gave us some good advice on what we should plan on doing next in our attempt for a World Match Racing Tour card by 2013. For now though the team returns back to Sydney where over the next four weeks we will start our preparations for the youth match racing circuit and put the lessons learnt from Bermuda into action for the Musto Championships starting on the 21st November.
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True Blue Racing - Argo Group Gold Cup - Jordan Reece
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True Blue Racing is a Youth Match Racing teams based out of Sydney, Australia. The team would like to thank Gill Australia and the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron for their continued support of the team on their quest to become the world's best match racing team.
by Jordan Reece
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