Hard to bear

Have led the match racing in World Match Race Tour event in Elba, the Williams team is nobbled in the final

On a dramatic day in Porto Azurro on the Island of Elba, the Williams Sail Racing Team of Ian Williams, Simon Shaw, Mark Nicholls, Bill Hardesty and Mark Williams secured second place in the ‘05/’06 World Match Racing Tour. Needing to beat Staffan Lindberg by two places overall, we faced the newly crowned World Champion, Peter Gilmour, in the finals whilst Lindberg sailed Cameron Dunn in the petite final. We were at 1-1 in the final when Dunn crossed the line to take the petite final 2-0 and hand us the silver medal.

Racing started at 10am in a light easterly breeze, but the morning easterly had proved to be fickle all week and so it proved again. We started at the starboard end of the line with Gilmour at the pin just as the breeze began to track right. About three minutes into the race the wind had gone about 30 degrees to the right, the race committee abandoned the race and, after a short period of deliberation, sent us back in to wait for more stable breeze. For a while it looked as though the more stable westerly may never materialize, which would have given us the event due to our 1st position in the double round robin, but at 2pm the easterly faded and by 2.30 their were signs that the westerly would come. The race committee sent us onto the course and by 3pm the wind had stabilised enough to start racing in about 8-14 knots of breeze although the late start resulted in the race committee shortening the final to a first to two series.

The re-started race 1 saw us dominate the pre-start exchanges. We held the dial-up for about a minute before Gilmour allowed his bow to come down a little too far onto starboard. This was our opportunity to circle around and come back again, so pushing Gilmour towards the pin end of the line and a shut-out. At about one minute to the start, Gilmour brought his bow down on starboard towards the pin end and we turned to follow, preventing him from gybing around to get back to the line. As the boats converged, with us to leeward, Gilmour bore off to close the gap and then threw his boat up and into a tack. This had the effect of locking us in and we were unable to prevent him tacking. At the same time, we protested claiming that Gilmour, as windward boat, had not sufficiently kept clear of us but unfortunately the umpires were not of the same opinion.



However, we still had a good start at the favoured port end of the line on port tack while Gilmour was at the starboard end, also on port tack. The left shift that we were in held almost to the layline but finally Gilmour picked up a right-hander and tacked across towards us. At first, we were bow forward but as we approached the wind clicked a little further right leaving us bow to bow. We put in a lee-bow tack and just had enough speed to get bow forward and begin to put in the squeeze. Unfortunately though, we were fast approaching the two boat-length circle with Gilmour inside. At the last possible moment we luffed hard, trying to force Gilmour to have to tack away, but he was just able to retain enough speed to hang off us to windward and eventually we came down on starboard with Gilmour to windward and inside at the mark. We pressed Gilmour down the run, but on the one-sided course there were no passing opportunities and despite rounding the second windward mark still right on Gilmour’s tail, we were unable to force him into an error and he went 1-0 up.

Race 2 had us entering from the port end. In the dial-up we were able to back our jib onto port and clear Gilmour and led around the committee boat, but when we went for the gybe around his bow onto starboard we were just below the layline for the committee boat which allowed Gilmour to round up on port and tack in to windward and to the right. To counter this we immediately tacked onto port, forcing Gilmour to bring his bow down towards us to prevent us lee-bow tacking and holding him head to wind until start time. This opened up the gap at the committee boat for us this time and we ducked Gilmour, tacked into windward and started right on the boat with Gilmour close to leeward.

We continued on a short way until the breeze began to head and we tacked off towards better pressure on the right. After a short time, Gilmour tacked to follow but as we pressed into the right hander we became stronger. We tacked onto starboard and at the cross Gilmour was just able to put in the lee-bow tack. We tacked away and again Gilmour followed. A further right hander but us bow forwards and we tacked back onto starboard, now close to the layline. Again Gilmour tacked to leeward but this time we were far enough bow forward to hang on on starboard and role over the top. Gilmour to leeward then began to fall out of pressure which we just retained and in not very long we had a sizeable lead. We rounded the top mark with a four length lead but in a completely calm patch and Gilmour was able to close to two lengths down the run. Up the next beat we consolidated but were unable to shake off Gilmour and our two length lead at the top mark suddenly did not look very comfortable as we again rounded in no breeze. Gilmour rounded in more pressure and immediately sailed in to leeward of our line. There he held until a left shift half way down the run allowed us to get our gybe in onto starboard and force Gilmour to gybe to windward. Gilmour then slowly rolled over the top but we were able to hold him past the port tack layline back to the finish and when we led the gybe back to the line Gilmour was under a little too much pressure and broached out while we sailed conservatively over the finish line.

We then watched Lindberg go down 2-0 in the petite final which handed us second place in the World Tour irrespective of our result, but we were still fired up to win the Locman Trophy and our first World Tour event. In the deciding race we entered from the starboard end, led away from the dial-up around the committee boat then initiated a circle. Unfortunately, Gilmour did a slightly better job of his circle and when we came back together he had positioned his boat to leeward of ours and in a controlling position. This forced us to tack back towards the line a little earlier than we wanted and from then Gilmour chased hard. As we approached the line we slowed and luffed and for a moment it looked like Gilmour was hooked in to windward, but he just managed to bring his bow below our transom and hook us up, forcing us towards the committee boat too early. To compound our problems, we had a foul up on the lazy jib sheet and suddenly we were unable to lay the committee boat on port with Gilmour preventing us from tacking. Our only option was to duck the committee boat and then tack around back behind it while Gilmour rounded up and started a clear five lengths ahead. We tried to get back into the race but Gilmour made no mistakes and we were unable to make any impact on his lead.

So a disappointing end to the regatta for us, but still a great result and mission accomplished in terms of securing the combined World Championship/World Tour silver medal, the first medal ever won in match racing by a British team.