BlackMatch makes Semis, misses Finals in Korea
'Adam Minoprio (NZL), Emirates Team New Zealand/BlackMatch Racing and Torvar Mirsky (AUS), Mirsky Racing Team in pre race manouvers for their Round Robin match. The Korea Match Cup held in San Hwasung City in the Gyeonggi Province of Korea'
Craig Mitchell WMRT
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BlackMatch Racing reports from the Korea Match Racing Cup, which carries the richest prizemoney of all the ISAF Grade 1 Match Racing events:
Hi all from BlackMatch in Korea,
Today was the end of the quarter finals and the completion of the semi finals. We started the day 1-0 up against World #1 Mathieu Richard, needing only one more win to proceed through to the semi finals. We took out the next match in style against the highly regarded Frenchman, convincingly winning the start and extending throughout the race to earn our spot in the top 4.
The other 3 to go through to the semi finals were Jesper Radich, Ian Williams and Sebastian Col. As Jesper was the next highest ranked skipper in the round robin, he got the choice of who to race in the semi final, when he chose to race world #5 and former world #1 Sebastian Col from France, it came as a bit of a surprise to us but we also took it as a compliment to how we have been sailing this week. This left us the unenviable task of racing current World Champion Ian Williams, for the other semi final berth.
We had some very, very close racing with Ian and his Pindar racing Team, but he eventually took out the semi final 3-2 in what were very unlucky circumstances for us.
In our first race we had an even start but slowly gained control up the first leg. Near the top of the course Ian tacked too close us and received a penalty, as we approached the top mark he had gained inside rights and sailed us past the top mark, he received a second penalty when he failed to give us room on an obstruction near the top mark and this meant he had to complete a penalty turn immediately, effectively game over. The second match was a bit more one sided and went to Ian, he won the favoured end of the start line and extended well throughout the race to take the win.
The third match also went to Ian, after we had an awesome start and a big lead for most of the race, the wind shut down and allowed the them to gain on us, in a situation that was out of our hands and up to the 'wind gods', we tried in vain to defend our lead in the unpredictable Korean conditions, but the wily Brits took out the third match. The forth match went all our way, a good start and we extended throughout the race to set up a fantastic show down.
The final match definitely lived up to all expectations and we felt very unlucky to lose this one. After a pre-start that saw Ian come up with an error when he failed to keep clear in a dial up, we trailed slightly off the start line.
We fought our way back and at the top mark we were side by side, Ian forced us into the docks that were situated near the top mark and we called for room to tack, following the tack Ian continued to luff us into the docks and the penalty went against us, this was a very strange umpire call as we were entitled to room and had taken only what we needed to pass the obstruction.
Despite this call that exonerated Ian, we continued to sail well and trailed by the smallest of margins on the second top mark rounding. When Ian was rounding the top mark his boat came into contact with the buoy, this is usually a guaranteed penalty but we were again let down as the umpires were not in the correct position to see this. We gybeset inside Ian and by the bottom mark we had regained the lead.
Going into the final downwind we had a 2 boat length advantage, usually we are up to the task and would defend this lead but Ian did very well to gybeset into massive wind pressure, this fatal mistake from us ultimately cost us the 2008 Korea Match Cup and Team Pindar sailed away to win by half a boat length.
Tomorrow we will race for 3rd against Jesper Radich who lost out to Sebastian Col 3-1. We feel like we were definitely sailing well enough to take out this regatta and remain positive that we made it this far. It is very encouraging to know that we can compete with the world's best and we are looking forward to the challenge of securing a podium finish.
BlackMatch would like to again thank our sponsors: FedEx Express, Ross Munro from Line 7 and Waiwera Infinity. We would also like to thank the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for their ongoing support.
BlackMatch Racing
by BlackMatch Racing Media 
