Third World Match Racing Tour win for Ian Williams

The Team GAC Pindar skipper describes his year on the World Match Racing Tour and Extreme Sailing Series

Ian Williams is in buoyant mood following his win not just of the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia at the weekend, but also of the 2011 World Match Racing Tour – the third time he has won match racing’s World Championship.

Williams and his Team GAC Pindar crew of Bill Hardesty, Mal Parker, Gerry Mitchell and Matt Cassidy went into the Monsoon Cup with a small lead of 106 points ahead of Italian ace Francesco Bruni on 100 with young Australian Torvar Mirsky on 99.8.

That provided them a little slack. “It meant that if we made the final and lost to either of them in the final, then we would still win the World Championship,” says Williams. “There was a vague possibility that we could not be the top of those three and still win, but it was unlikely because the reality of the Monsoon Cup is that you tend to end up having your showdown before the final. I don’t think it has ever gone to the final. The World Championship has always been decided in the quarters and semis.”

Traditionally the Monsoon Cup claims one of the big scalps early on. In 2009 it was Williams' while last year defending champion Adam Minoprio failed to make it through.

This year once again the clash came to a head in the Round Robins. Williams initially lost out to Torvar Mirsky and after this, on four wins and five losses with two flights to go, it was essential that they won the two races or Championship victory would slip through their fingers. Unfortunately next up was Francesco Bruni...

“There were some pretty tense moments during that race,” recounts Williams of his match against the Italian. “We rounded the last top mark just behind, but we managed to soak inside and gybe on his air, but we were sailing at 130° or so TWA and he was trying to hold us at quite a tight angle, because he had a good solid overlap and luffing rights - it looked like he would hold us past the finish line, but suddenly his rudder cavitated and he broached out. I was watching his bow carefully and he started slowing down, which was him fighting the broach, and then suddenly the bow swung up behind us and we bore away to the finish line. It was brilliant.”

Team GAC Pindar then won their next match against Mathieu Richard which left the final flight of the round robins with Mirsky and Bruni lining up, each on five wins and with the winner going through, the loser going to the airport. This proved another close race with the young Australian leading all the way around until, on this occasion, Bruni overtook on the run into the finish to win by a hair.

From here Williams defeated Bruni in the quarter finals which was enough to secure the World Match Racing Tour title for 2011 and then they dispatched Sweden's Johnie Berntsson 3-1 in the finals to claim the Monsoon Cup and the winner’s pot of US$100,000.

The Monsoon Cup was the fourth of the nine World Match Racing Tour events Team GAC Pindar won this season, following on from the Portimao Portugal Match Cup, the Stena Match Cup Sweden and the Danish Open.

Williams’ third win came after victory on the World Match Racing Tour in 2007 and 2008 followed by two year when he admits his campaign didn’t quite come together enough.

So what made the different this year? “Since GAC has been involved in the team, we have been able to have a more professional approach. Our preparation has been much better this year. We have done a lot more training and training regattas, particularly at the start of the year, and that set us on the right course for the season.”

Before the World Match Racing Tour kicked off in 2011, they competed in the Congressional Cup, another event in Spain called the Open d’Espagna and then spent four days at the Chicago Match Racing Centre.

“Those pre-season events aren’t so high pressure and it allows you to try some things out, communicating in the team and team structures and settle on what you think is going to work the best,” says Williams. In addition they attempted, as the crew’s schedule allowed, to pitch up at Tour events earlier to get more practice in.

For this season Williams signed up a new combination of crew, although they had all sailed with him before. Mal Parker was with him for the last couple of seasons, while Gerry Mitchell was part of Williams’ previous WMRT-winning crew as was Bill Hardesty, while Matt Cassidy sailed one event in 2010 with him. For the latter part of the season this line-up remained consistent although at two events earlier in the year in France and Korea, Williams’ brother Mark and Richard Sydenham stood in. “Since Korea we have been only sailing with the core crew and for sure that makes a big difference.”

Williams says that while they have worked well as a crew in all the events requiring five crew, the occasions they have been weakest this season were in races sailed in four-man boats. “We had a 10th in France, a 7th in Bermuda and a 3rd in St Moritz, but because the Monsoon Cup always decides it, I build the team around that event and around a five man team.” As a result when they drop to four they seem to lose something. “That is going to be something for us to work on next year – how we manage without everybody there.”

While the Tour is slowly growing under its new owners, the landscape has changed with the new era of the America’s Cup moving into stadium sailing on catamarans with noticeably less emphasis on match racing. “In previous years the Tour has been a breeding ground for America’s Cup sailors and people wanted to do it to learn those skills to get into the America’s Cup or if they were in Cup teams, to keep their match racing skills sharp," observes Williams. "So now I think, from a sailor’s perspective, the Tour needs to stand on its own two feet. Obviously now it doesn’t have the same link to the America’s Cup, so the sailor’s are doing it because they want to do it. I still think it is a good circuit. It provides good close racing and it is still a good one to win.”

Williams has not been solely focussing on match racing this year. At the beginning of the year he got his first taste of short course stadium sailing on catamarans at the Extreme Sailing Series event in Oman and GAC Team Pindar has been actively participating on that circuit throughout this year. Embarking on this was hard, trailing along the bottom of the leaderboard and while they are still ninth overall in the 11 boat fleet, at the last event in Almeria Williams' team finished fourth.

“We have obviously improved as the year has gone on,” says Williams. “It was always going to be very much a learning year and we went into it with that approach. We have only recently bought 2011 generation sails and that has made a big difference to our boat speed, but honestly we didn’t have the skill early on to get the most out of the new sails anyway. We have had a lot of crew changes as well and it has been a case of bringing new people through the program and me trying to learn as much from them as possible really with a view to challenge for the podium next year.”

While the WMRT and the Extreme Sailing Series might seem poles apart, in fact, aside from the boats and the race format, they are very close, both fully professional events, both aiming to bring racing to the public, with short courses at close quarters. “I have really enjoyed it. I think Mark Turner has done a great job with the Series and I think that it provides a really good return for sponsors, particularly on the corporate hospitality side. We have had hundreds of guests through the Extreme Sailing Series this year and every one of them I have spoken to has really enjoyed the experience.”

The Extreme Sailing Series’ extremely short courses often are criticised for turning races into a lottery, however Williams says he subscribes to the view that over a course of a regatta, where literally 40 races can be run, the team that has sailed the best will come out on top.

“With a short course, of course the start is important and that is similar to match racing, particularly with the short courses we are doing on the World Match Racing Tour. Both tours are often close to the shore, which in itself can make for a one-sided race course. Again that puts a greater emphasis on the start and the strategy around the start. So in many ways there are a lot of similarities but there are two big differences [with the Extreme Sailing Series] - the most obvious one, that it is a catamaran and there is obviously a different feel involved and the other difference is that we have to bring and prepare our own boat and the logistics and operation around that is an extra thing for us to worry about.”

Typically, apart from Williams, there is no crossover between the Extreme 40 and WMRT crew Team GAC Pindar use. Williams points out that there are already enough clashes between the two circuits – this year between Match Race Germany and the Extreme Sailing Series event in Istanbul – that along with the sailor’s other commitments there is little point in trying to get a common team throughout. Plus there are different skills involved. “It is not out of the question, but it is not a goal.”

As yet Team GAC Pindar hasn’t confirmed its program for next year, but Williams anticipates that once again they will be competing on both circuits. Even with this schedule, in 2011 he found some time to race occasionally on Johnny Vincent's TP52 Pace and be part of the coaching effort for Lucy Macgregor’s Women Match Racing campaign for London 2012 – which he intends to continue until the Games next August.

Williams’ aim is still ultimately to compete in the America’s Cup, even though the goalposts have moved substantially. “I guess we are waiting to see how many of the teams make it up into the 72s. But for sure I would love to be involved at some point.” And competing on the Extreme Sailing Series and the World Match Racing Tour are ideal training grounds.

While the Extreme Sailing Series’ final event of 2011 is to take place in Singapore in December, followed by the first of 2012 in Oman probably in February, Williams and his match racing crew get a longer break from competition with the Tour, which doesn’t fire up again until May next year.

However before then, like this year, Williams says he will go into a training phase. In particular he will be focussing on getting on the pace aboard the Extreme 40. “Because of the shipping schedule, you get so little time with the boat during the year, that really if you want to do any training you have to do it all up front before the start of the year. So we are going to plan quite a significant period of training before the first regatta in Oman.”