Knocked out by Spithill

Ian Williams reports on their final day of racing at Brazil Sailing Cup

James Spithill rounded out an impressive regatta yesterday to win the inaugural Brazil Sailing Cup. Dropping just one race throughout the regatta, Spithill was on impressive form.

Williams Sail Racing’s regatta came to an end in the quarter finals when we lost to Spithill 2-0. After winning the start in the first race and what had consistently earlier been the favoured left hand side of the course, we sailed out to a few boat lengths short of the port layline and tacked, while Spithill took the hard right. When we came back, Spithill was just crossing and he was able to extend to the left, then lee-bow us on the starboard layline into the mark. That gave Spithill just enough room to be clear down the run and from there we were unable to force him into any errors.

In the second race, we went into the traditional dial-up from the starboard side and both boats went into reverse. This carried on for two minutes but the boats began to converge. We attempted to break out of the situation and lead back to the start line but unfortunately we were unable to get enough flow over our foils and we drifted sideways into Spithill. This both stopped us and caused us to receive a penalty. Spithill was able to lead back to the line and from that moment we were again unable to force him into any errors.

Finals day was spent in the protest room for us after the jury had applied the tie-break procedure incorrectly in placing us 8th. In our redress hearing, the jury conceded that it had made an error but, unfortunately for us, they then found that the Notice of Race had impliedly amended the tie-break procedure and the original result stood. Quite how they did that is still a mystery to me as the ISAF racing rules clearly state the ways that rules can be amended and via the Notice of Race is not one of those ways. I guess its something to put down to experience as there is no right of appeal from a decision of an international jury.

The other Brit in the regatta, Ben Ainslie, had a great result in beating Ed Baird in the quarter finals but then succumbed to the same fate as us; losing to Spithill 2-0 in the semi-finals. He then did well to roll over Gavin Brady in the petit final 2-0.

Next up for us is the Congressional Cup in three weeks time. It is the first time we’ve been to Long Beach so we’re looking forward to that one.