Qualifying an impressive second place in a star studded line up in the double round robin stage MRT were chosen by round robin winner Team Origin lead by Ben Ainslie for the semi-final race.

Ainslie took two quick victories in hard fought battles against MRT

“It was great to compete against the Cup teams as they warm up for the Louis Vuitton Trophy being held next week. Adam’s and our teams were the only teams that weren’t Americas Cup teams so we are happy to have raced the world best match racers and finished where we did. It was a good warm up for our team as it has been our first event as a team since last years Monsoon Cup.

We are looking forward to the tour taking off again in Marsielle in April and we are aiming for bigger and better things this year” said Mirsky.

In front of their home crowd, Emirates Team New Zealand’s Dean Barker took out the trophy once more after only narrowly scraping into the semi final round, beating Team Origin’s Ben Ainslie 2 – 0 before the breeze shut out completely.

Final Results:

• 1st Team New Zealand
• 2nd Team Origin
• 3rd BlackMatch
• 4th Mirsky Racing Team
• 5th Team Synergy
• 6th Aleph Sailing Team
• 7th Victory Challenge
• 8th Team Azzura
• 9th Dickson Sailing Team

10th All4One

Coming out focused and fired up in the morning, MRT took the first race off Team Origin whilst inflicting a double penalty and comfortably sailing to victory. With momentum on MRT’s side, they went out to push Ainslie in the second race of the day and secure another win to even up the scores at 2-2.

The fifth and final race was a showstopper with MRT pushing the Brits the whole way round, but they didn’t slip up and went on to take the Australians out of the competition.

With World Tour points at stake, MRT still needed to finish as high as possible, but in the 5th-8th sail off they were out sailed by last years winner Johnnie Berntsson and local star Blythe Walker to finish in 8th position.

MRT has been relegated to 2nd place on the World Match Racing Tour standings and going into the final in Malaysia they will still have a shot at the World Championship title.

“A lot of things didn’t go our way this week, but we sailed well and only just missed out on the semi’s to Team Origin. We have a lot of work to do in Malaysia, but we are still well in touch with BlackMatch and with a good result we will be able to take out this year’s championship” said Mirsky who is now making his way back to Perth to begin training up for the finals in December.

Article by Kyle Langford

Two races of the quarter final series were completed this afternoon, and despite going through the repacharge undefeated, MRT went down in both races against three time Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie.

The first race saw MRT leading Team Origin throughout the race, but the umpires made a controversial decision and penalised MRT because they thought they had infringed with a boat from another match. This meant that they had to slow the game down and try to wipe their penalty on the final run, but Ainslie worked into a strong position and took the win.

With MRT up against the ropes, the racing was postponed until tomorrow which gives the team a chance to regroup and regain focus.

“It’s a tough position to be in” said tactician Kyle Langford “but we still have to do the same thing as we did this morning. We are sailing really well, but the long day out on the water brought out some small mistakes and the Origin guys didn’t let us get away with anything.”

With tomorrow’s forecast predicting much of the same as today, MRT will be looking to turn up the heat and take down the sailing giants from Origin, and continue taking steps towards holding the Argo Group Bermuda Gold Cup above their heads.

MRT vs Black Match in Korea 2008

Fickle winds, new boats and a new venue for the Mirsky Racing Team saw them finishing in 10th
place at Match Race Germany earlier this week. Although it was a disappointing result for the
young team who went into the event seeded in 4th place, a short debrief and an early flight to
Korea has got them pumped up for the Korea Match Cup starting tomorrow morning.

As a team, MRT excel in manipulating the boats to generate as much speed out of situations where most
teams are slow, but with Match Race Germany being raced in Bavaria’s designed for cruising, their
advantage was taken away. This has opened their eyes to the need for improving this style of sailing in
order to become the world’s best match racers.

For now however, the team has shifted their focus onto the Korea Match Cup, which is expecting to play
host to 400,000 spectators over the 5 days. 12 teams are competing for the biggest prize pool of 300,000
Korean Won, including Ben Ainslie who only won Match Race Germany today. Laurie Jury from New
Zealand qualified for the event 2 weeks ago, and could prove to be a threat after spending a week in the
tough venue, with tides up to 4 metres.

A special thanks to Line7, Harken and the Royal Perth Yacht Club for their support.

FINAL RESULTS FOR MATCH RACE GERMANY

1st Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin

2nd Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team
3rd Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
4th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
5th Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
6th Francesco Bruni (ITA) Joe Fly Match Race
7th Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
8th Sébastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge
9th Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard
10th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing
11th Eric Monnin (SUI) Team Search.ch
12th Carsten Kemmling (GER)

MRT ahead of Ben Ainslie in 2008

MRT are looking forward to TEAMORIGIN the British challenger for the 33rd America’s Cup skippered by triple Olympic Gold medallist Ben Ainslie joining the World Match Racing Tour. Ben will compete on the 2009 World Match Racing Tour having secured the final Tour Card.

Ainslie said:
“Since TEAMORIGIN was formed there has been limited opportunity for us to sail as a team. The Tour will allow us to compete at a high level of match racing competition whilst we develop our core sailing team. We look forward to competing on the Tour this year and having a shot at the World Championship. The Tour will aid in our preparations for the next Cup as and when it happens”

Craig Mitchell, WMRT Tour Director said:

“With the addition of TEAMORIGIN to the teams competing on the Tour this year we are shaping up for a highly competitive season. The WMRT’s commercial platform and television coverage will enable the team to continue racing and continue to build the team profile, as well as contributing towards the solid base they need to build a winning Americas Cup team.”