MRT in the 2008 Bermuda Gold Cup

The stage 1, round robin groupings for the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s Argo Group Gold Cup have been published, listing the pairings that shows skippers the opponents they must face to reach stage 2, the quarter final round. Starting on Tuesday, the round robin is the first step on the path to the King Edward VII Gold Cup and $50,000… half of the total $100,000 prize purse.

Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Group 1, Adam Minoprio (NZL) Group 2, and Mathieu Richard (FRA) Group 3 are the top seeds. They rank as the top three in both the World Match Racing Tour and on the ISAF ranking list. Mirsky is ranked first on the WMRT while Minoprio is ranked first by ISAF. Richard is ranked third by both.

Joining Mirsky in Group 1 are Ian Williams (GBR), Damien Iehl (FRA), Keith Swinton (AUS), Eric Monin (SUI), Reuben Corbett (NZL), Robbie Allum (GBR) and Ian Evans (USA).

Paired with Minoprio in Group 2 are Sebastian Col (FRA), Ben Ainslie (GBR), Bjorn Hansen (SWE), Alvaro Marinho (POR), Dave Perry (USA), Rasmus Viltoft (DEN), and Paula Lewin (BER).

Matched in Group 3 with Mathieu Richard are Peter Gilmour (AUS), Johnie Berntsson (SWE), Mattias Rahm (SWE), Phil Robertson (NZL), Blythe Walker (BER), Don Wilson (USA), Charlie Enright (USA).

“We use a formula based on ISAF rankings and Tour experience to develop the parings.” said Argo Group Gold Cup Chairman Brian Billings. “We have the top eight skippers and last year’s champion divided among the three groups. Then we work from there to make the groups as equal as possible. It is a unique format on the World Match Racing Tour. Sixteen teams will be eliminated before the quarter finals begin. Even the top ranked skippers can be knocked out early.”

“In 2007, Billings continued, “local Bermuda favorite Blythe Walker showed that the ranking numbers aren’t proof of performance. He was unranked, not having sailed any Tour events, but he made it all the way to the semi-finals before losing to Bjorn Hansen. Some of the up-and-coming young sailors may just break into the big time here in Bermuda.”

From the round-robin stage, the top two from each of the original three groups automatically move into the quarter finals. The third and fourth finishers in each original group then meet in the ‘repecharge’ round-robin called Group 4. The top two will join the original six in the step up the ladder and advance into the quarter finals, with a chance to go to the semi-finals on Saturday and finals on Sunday.

MRT Gets Two Penalties on Bahrain Team Pindar

In a tough day at the Korea Match Cup Mirsky Racing Team get eliminated from a close quarter final battle
against reigning world champion Bahrain Team Pindar.

Hitting the water this morning, the scores were equal at 1-1. Williams took victory in the first race. The race
committee, under tight time restrictions were forced to race the competitors in near unsailable conditions
which saw MRT ‘follow the leader’ as there were no passing opportunities.

With Bahrain Team Pindar now within a win of progressing to the next stage MRT went out in the next race
determined to take victory. In an intense prestart battle which saw Bahrain Team Pindar receive two penalties
on the approach to the line, in a change of control, MRT were on the receiving end of a penalty as the starting
gun was fired.

Bahrain Team Pindar held their lead throughout the race and completed their penalty to make the scores 3-1
in the quarter finals. In a red flag hearing Bahrain Team Pindar were deducted half a point for serious damage
they incurred whilst receiving their penalties which gave MRT another chance of qualifying for the semi finals.

MRT filled with enthusiasm knew they had been given another chance went firing into the next race. Mirsky
dominated the prestart when half way up the first windward leg Bahrain Team Pindar 3 boat lengths behind
dropped their sails in protest of a technicality of the race committee. MRT went on to finish the race and take
the scores to 2.5 – 2.

In the deciding race, MRT fought hard but could not catch Bahrain Team Pindar in the light Korean breeze as
the Brits showed why they are the reigning two time world champions, and qualifying through to the semi finals.

Tomorrow MRT will be racing off for 5th place, valuable World Tour ranking points and their share in the
300,000,000 Won prize pool.

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

Concentration needed for Light Airs

With contrasting weather to the previous few days in Langenargen, we completed our training session in very light and variable winds, which in addition to the new boats has added another challenge to overcome as racing starts tomorrow.

The event will be sailed in Bavaria 35′s, which are designed as a cruising yacht with all the luxurious extras. The Bavaria’s will prove to be quite a challenging boat as they are somewhat different to the other more conventional racing yachts sailed on the World Match Racing Tour.

Fortunately we were able to dedicate today’s training session solely to our boat work as we recently completed a 3 day training camp in Sweden to hone in our match racing tactics.

The experience gained at our training camp with current world champion Ian Williams and Victory Challenge skippers Magnus Holmberg and Mattias Rahm will hopefully be the decisive factor for us in Match Race Germany.

Tomorrow racing gets underway at 9am where the race committee will try to take advantage of the early morning land breeze.

Skippers List:

Adam Minoprio (NZL) Blackmatch / ETNZ
Matteui Richard (FRA) French Sailing Team
Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team
Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team
Sebastian Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team
Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
Francesco Bruni (ITA) Joe Fly
Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
Peter Gilmour (AUS) Team Yanmar
Eric Monnin (SUI) Team Search.ch
Carsten Kemmling (GER)

The following article appeared as a feature today on Yachtsponsorship.com

Torvar Mirsky and his team are looking forward to the 2009 World Match Racing Tour. Ranked 6th at the end of the 2008 series, the team are hoping to use their new ‘tour card’ status to concentrate on winning the World Championship title.

But while they have the skill to do it, they lack the backing of some of the other teams. Well funded teams like America’s Cup defender Alinghi and sailing ’super-team’ Bahrain Team Pindar provide their skippers (Ed Baird and Ian Williams) with logistical support enabling them to focus on sailing. Currently without a major sponsor, MRT share roles like organising travel, managing websites and press and training, amongst themselves.

We caught up with Mirsky Racing Team who are in Marseille training before the competition starts this week.

What are you looking forward to most in 09?

In the past two years, our focus has been solely on securing a spot on the World Match Racing Tour, and now that we have achieved our goal we are able to shift our focus onto the exciting prospect of winning the Tour and being crowned World Champions.

How does the new tour card system affect you?

We managed to secure a tour card for the 2009 season, which has given us guaranteed entry into all of the events on this year’s tour. Among other things, this will help in our search for sponsorship as we can guarantee exposure throughout the entire year. In the previous years we had to put a lot of effort into gaining entries into the Tour’s events, which often came at very short notice. We would very rarely be able to train prior to an event, which put us on the back foot throughout the season. However we now have the ability to train before all of the events, giving us the edge needed to win this year’s Tour.

Do you get enough support from Australia? What about support from outside Australia?

We get no financial backing from anywhere at this point in time; however Line7 and Harken have recently come on board to assist our team with clothing and accessories which has been a great help. Along with this alignment, we have been shown a lot of support of the Royal Perth Yacht Club and its members who have been very enthusiastic about our performance. We have also managed to build up a large following both within Australia and worldwide.

What have you done since the monsoon cup to prepare for 2009?

We have been fortunate over the Australian summer to have Greg Kerr from PhysioTherapy eXercise working very closely with our team in preparation for the 2009 season. He has given us a number of Eastern and Western training methods to help us excel both physically and psychologically which has had an encouraging effect on our fitness and attitude. As well as this, we have all individually made an effort to sail a variety of different boats, concentrating more on dinghy and skiff sailing. We feel that small boat sailing is very important in the development of keelboat sailing as mistakes, both tactically and mechanically have exaggerated effects.

What would financial backing mean to MRT? How would it help you?

The teams that are in the forefront of sailing have the resources and backing to let them achieve their full potential when it comes to each event. Financial support would essentially allow us to achieve our goal of winning the World Match Racing Tour as training and preparation between events is a necessity if we are to reach our peak.

Are some rivalries bigger than others or do you treat every competitor the same way?

We always prepare for each race and each event with the same approach. No matter who we are racing, the course still has its favoured side and there are always powerful positions to be in. However despite being good friends, it is hard to put feelings aside when we come up against Adam Minoprio and his BlackMatch Racing team because both our teams have grown up racing one another on the Australasian youth circuit. When we come up against each other at such a high level we always want to get the edge over them and you can guarantee some close racing.

Mirsky Racing Team Official website: http://www.mirskyracingteam.com

You can follow the team on twitter at : http://www.twitter.com/mirskyracing

What's Wrong With This Picture?

A day filled with drama and emotion came to a close with both semi finals well underway, and the fight for the World Match Racing Champion title decided as Ian Williams is crowned champion for the second year running. The focus for us has now shifted onto securing a top 4 spot on the Tour, and hopefully winning the Monsoon Cup. After finishing 2nd in the round, we were given the power to choose our quarter final opponent after Paolo Cian had picked Adam Minoprio. We decided on Magnus Holmberg of Sweden, as we felt our crew work could outshine his. Although it wasn’t an easy win by any means, our decision paid off, and we defeated him 3-0.

We then opted to race the winner of the Gilmour/Col quarterfinal series, leaving Minoprio to race defending champion Ian Williams who won his first two races. The Gilmour/Col racing went into the full 5 matches, and was eventually decided in a nail biting race which saw Gilmour come out on top dashing the Frenchman’s dreams of winning the Tour title.

Our first race of the semi finals got underway late in the evening just before the sun set and yet another monsoon squall shot through Kuala Terrengannu. Gilmour got the jump on us at the start, and with the power of the right managed to maintain his lead to the top mark. We fought with every effort to get back at him but the old fox wasn’t going to let us near, so we were left to go down 1-0 until racing begins again tomorrow morning. For more updates, visit here or here or to follow the action live, visit sail.tv.