In the second flight of the semis, Williams
Photo: Guy Nowell
The first flight of the ‘first-to-two’ semi-finals produced some of the most visually exciting match racing seen all weekend. Just ahead on the water, Tiller was carrying a penalty on the final downwind leg. With Williams too close behind for Tiller to be able to get his exonerating turn in without losing the race, he slowed down to try and force the penalty to even things up. He threw in around 20 gybes to try and force a penalty on Williams but with the tactic unsuccessful, Williams scored another win. In the other semi-final, Soh finished comfortably ahead of Robertson in their first flight, but could he do it again over the world number four?
Photo: Lindsay Lyons
Photo: Guy Nowell
Feature | 1O1O 4G Match Racing International Regatta
together with Gilmour / Robertson. While Tiller turned in a fine performance to give Williams his second loss of the competition, against the run of form, Gilmour bested Robertson, but it wasn’t enough to offset the 0.5 penalty he had picked up for a collision on the first day and Maximilian Soh clinched the fourth spot in the semi-finals, along with Robertson, Tiller and Williams.
picked up a penalty for an upwind port / starboard incident, which he cleared at the first windward rounding. This allowed Tiller to close up in spite of the ground lost during the incident, through no fault of his own. At the end of the second downwind leg, Tiller put in the better gybe and picked up a puff to cross the line inches ahead of his rival. Robertson built up a comfortable lead over Soh from the start of their match, and finished a couple of boat lengths ahead to make it 1-1. In the first decider, Williams had the better start, but Tiller caught him on the first downwind leg and passed him to windward with spinnakers up, managing to stay ahead to win by five boat lengths. In the second decider, Soh picked up a penalty in the start sequence and never recovered, with Robertson finishing over half a leg ahead of the Singaporean. In the first flight of the petit final, with the breeze holding well at 4.5 to 6kts, Williams was in control from the start and finished 5 lengths ahead of Soh. In the all-Kiwi final, Tiller edged ahead of Robertson on the first downwind leg, and managed to stay in control for the rest of
the race. In something of a first for Hong Kong harbour racing, the talk was that the breeze wasn’t shifty enough to produce really exciting match racing! With impeccable timing, Strompf-Jepsen shoe-horned the last match of the day into the schedule, just before the wind died to 2kts. In the petit final, Williams finished a boat length ahead of Soh to finish third, and William Tiller recorded his second straight win over his former skipper, Phil Robertson, to engrave his name on the silverware. After three days and some world class sailing, perhaps the most competitive in Hong Kong this year, the 2013 1O1O 4G Match Racing International Regatta came to an end in Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour with young Kiwi skipper William Tiller declared the winner. At a lively prizegiving, CSL/1O1O Chief Marketing Officer Mark Liversidge presented the top four skippers with their silverware, while CSL/1O1O Chief Executive Officer Han Willem Kotterman presented mementoes to the Race Officials and International Umpires.
FINAL PLACINGS William Tiller Phil Robertson Ian Williams Maximilian Soh David Gilmour Peter Backe Laurence Mead Gunwoo Park John Eriksson Morten Jakobsen Lui Kam Seah Chin Yew
(NZL) (NZL) (GBR) (SIN) (AUS) (SWE) (GBR) (KOR) (FIN) (THA) (HKG) (HKG)
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The Club would like to express its sincere thanks to 1O1O 4G, whose support made this fantastic event possible, and is delighted to announce that the partnership will continue for the 2013-2014 Match Racing Series. Further thanks go to Chief International Umpire Marianne Middelthon (NOR) together with International Umpires Paco Quiñonero (ESP) and Masaaki Tanaka (JPN) and the team of local Umpires which included Tom Sheppard, Cathy Delany, David Fan, Dominic Hardoon and Bonnie Cheng. Race Officer Inge Strompf-Jepsen was universally acknowledged to have run a great regatta, with the help of ARO Sofia Mascia and assistants Lucy Sutro and Fiona Gregor. The mark laying team of Nigel Reeves, Lesley Anderson, John Breen and ‘Bosun’ Nick Hollis were kept on their toes throughout the three days and honed their technique almost to perfection, while a special mention goes to the volunteer PVOL holders who stood down the companionway on every J/80 in order to satisfy current legal requirements; Virendra Anand, John Brennan, Ray Chan, Denis Chien, Ben Chong, Alex Cribbin, Deborah Fu Berkley, Kam Fung, Tom Gifford, Patrick Lam, Ka Lai Lao, Jennifer Li, Nick Southward, Ben Williams, Raymond Wu, Miko Yeung and Bonny Yung. Without this immense team of volunteers and overseas officials, there would be no International Regatta!
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| JUNE 2013 AHOY!