Through to the quarters

Ian Williams reports on his progress up against the world's top match racers at the Brasil Sailing Cup

Day 3 of the inaugural Brasil Sailing Cup dawned with cloudless skies in contrast to the heavy rain of the night before. With the land heating up early, the thermal breeze created was the strongest we’ve seen since the start of the event.

First up for the Williams Sail Racing team was Cameron Dunn from the Mascalzone Latino America’s Cup team. Leading back to the start line, we were able to hook up Dunn to windward of us and force him into a tack onto port under the layline for the committee boat. We quickly followed forcing him to gybe around to come back to the line. However, the time was running out fast and Dunn was late for the line. We completed our tack back on to starboard as Dunn gybed and started with a clear 1 length lead which Dunn never looked like closing.

The win against Dunn secured our position in the top 4 of the round robin, an important point as the race committee had suggested they may go straight to the quarter finals after this round. However, we were still in a position to finish anywhere between 1st and 4th in the round robin with races left against James Spithill of Luna Rossa and Dean Barker of Emirates Team New Zealand. After winning the start against Spithill, we were unfortunately a little slower in the strong breeze and he was able to build a 1 length lead on the first beat that we were never able to eat into. We learnt from that experience though and came out fighting against Barker. After an even start where we were slightly bow forward but Barker had the advantageous right hand side, we entered into a tacking duel which carried on right to the top mark. Each time we would lee-bow Barker and each time he would tack away. Unfortunately, we were not quite able to force him out to the layline early enough and the last time in he was able to hold on starboard and round the mark inside us. We closed a little on the run and went to the opposite end of the leeward mark gate giving us a split tack beat. When we came back together near the top mark we were overlapped again. We ducked Barker (who was on starboard) and he immediately put in the slam dunk which we tacked out of immediately. However, we were just a couple of lengths short of the layline and Barker was able to tack back onto starboard and hold us to leeward of him until the mark. Around the top mark we went straight onto the attack and rolled Barker on starboard. Unfortunately though, we were just unable to break the overlap which allowed Barker to hold us on past the layline and then lead us back to the finish.

That loss left us 4th in the round robin behind Spithill, Barker and Ainslie in that order. Consequently we then had to sail in the repechage round where the bottom 3 from each group complete a round robin and the top 2 advance to the quarter finals. After a poor start against Dunn, we were able to sail a little smoother and faster and pass him up the first beat. From there we never looked like losing and duly took the first race. Next up against Staffan Lindberg, we were forced to duck him early up the beat but that gave us the favoured right hand side. However, we came back together again close and allowed Lindberg to get to the right of us as starboard was now the long tack to the mark. There were a few anxious moments as we lee-bowed Lindberg approaching the top mark but a well timed luff allowed us to slow the game right down and then accelerate away to lead round the top mark, again slowly drawing away for the rest of the race.

Next was our bye (which was a result of Peter Gilmour not attending the regatta due to visa problems) and that was followed by a win against Daniel Glomb of Brazil. Finally, we raced Thierry Peponnet. By this point we were guaranteed a place in the quarter finals and despite leading the race early on, we took our eye off the ball a little and allowed Peponnet to pass.

Those results left us in first place in the repechage with a 3-way tie for second place between Lindberg, Peponnet and Dunn which I understand Peponnet won by virtue of beating us in the round robin. That leaves us up against Spithill in the quarter finals tomorrow. He is the on-form sailor in the world right now having won the World Championships followed by the Bermuda Gold Cup and then the Melges 24 World Championships at the end of last year. We’ve certainly got our work cut out although we are hoping that the extra practice we’ve had since we raced him second up this morning will have helped us close the gap.