Coming from behind

The Daily Sail talks to Ian Williams about how he dispatched James Spithill to come second at the Blurimini match racing

When we last spoke to Ian Williams in January he gave the impression that he was just going to be keeping his hand in this year as he completed his law qualifications. However since then he has upped the ante.

Williams is now the leading British sailor in the ISAF ranking - currently 10th (in comparison Paul and Mark Campbell-James are 22nd and 33rd, Chris Law 38th according to the 20 May ISAF rankings). This is thanks to a superb run whereby he has got into the finals of the last seven match racing events he has taken part in.

This run culminated this weekend in a second place finish at the Blurimini Match Race where he dispatched the likes of Paolo Cian and Andy Green, but in particular nobbled hot shot America's Cup sailor James Spithill. This was an impressive result for someone who had to qualify for the event.

"We did the qualifier two months ago and won that," Williams told The Daily Sail. "We've moved up to 10 in the rankings now, but when the rankings came out we were lower down we had to go through the qualification process."

During the round robin of the grade 2 Blurimini Match Race their toughest competition was against Frenchman Mattieu Richard. In the ISAF match racing rankings Richard is currently lying ninth - one place ahead of them.

There was one incident in this match Williams was particularly pleased with. "We came in on port towards the bottom mark," recounted Williams. "We were clear ahead at two boat lengths. We hooked him up inside and luffed him and sailed outside two lengths and then we both tacked, which meant we’d done our penalty. Then as we bore away we managed to get water inside him again, which he didn’t give to us and so ended up received two penalties for that. So we went into the mark a penalty down and come out of it two penalties up, which was a nice move. We’ll try that one again..."

Coming out of the round robins Williams and Richard were tied on five wins and four losses. Because of Williams' win against Richard he was able to secure the bottom spot in the semis.

"Then Spithill, who had won the round robins, chose to sail us in the semi-finals. That was a tight semi-finals with a quite a lot of penalties given out," recounted Williams.

"In the first race we got a penalty in the pre-start and led all the way around the course, but we were unable to shed the penalty and in trying to do so we picked up another penalty on the last run and lost that one.

"The second one we led from start to finish by a reasonable margin. The third one we led off the line, but then made a mistake up the beat and picked up a red flag penalty, which we had to do straight away. Then we followed him round but just managed to get him right at the top of the second beat on a port-starboard and he picked up a penalty for that which he was unable to shed down the final run." So 2-1 to Williams.

Williams says this is the first time he has raced Spithill since 1998. "He’s done a bit since then! It was a really good result to beat him, because in some people’s eyes he was the favourite and he’s gone a long way and he’s a big name in match racing now."

This found Williams and his team of former GBR Challenge man Simon Fisher, Joe Llewellyn and Williams' brother Mark in the final up against World Match Racing champion Karol Jablonski, while Spithill raced Paolo Cian in the petit finals.

"The final wasn’t quite so good for us. We had a couple of opportunities. The first race, Jablonski led off the line and we got back overlapped on the run, but we had a few protests against him which the umpires green flagged and he was able to block us from getting past and then we were unable to get him round the rest of the course.

"The second race we led for the first round but a couple of bad tacks in a bit of chop up the second beat basically enabled him to get up level and then he managed to get past in a further tacking duel. In the third race he led from the start."

Could they have beaten him? "I think we would have had to have sailed a bit better. He was very sharp. The most significant difference was his tacking was a little bit better than ours. When it is quite so close you end up doing a lot of tacking and that becomes very significant."

Where now?

From here Williams is keeping his fingers crosses that he will be in a position to qualify for the Match Racing World Championships to be held on 24-31 August at Riva del Garda.

"We are hoping to qualify for that, but we’re not sure. At the moment we’re 10 there's another few coming up: Magnus Holmberg and James Spithill may well leapfrog us.

"That was our last event before the cut off to the Worlds. I believe we have the fourth best record this year in terms of points for ISAF, but because it is a two year system and our results from 1-2 years ago are not so good and there’s nothing we can do to change them, except wait for our more recent results to kick in, it is a sit and wait for us job now and hope that we’ve done enough."

Williams' run is particularly impressive considering that with the exception of Simon Fisher, they all have jobs (ie real jobs, not ones in sailing). "It is good to go and sail against the people who are doing it full time and take them on," says Williams.

Currently Williams is still waiting to qualify to become a lawyer. This won't be completed until September. After that there is a possibility he might look to take up match racing full time. "It is difficult. It is something to think about. I think it is fair to say it is something that would now increasingly become an option for me...."

Meanwhile Williams will be in action in the UK this year at the UK – Match Racing Nationals this year in Weymouth on 26-28 September and, of course, will be putting in an appearance at the Firefly Nationals.