Wilson Trophy at West Kirby Sailing Club - Day 2
by Justin Chisholm 2 May 2009 23:20 BST
1-3 May 2009
The cream rises to the top
The sixtieth edition of the Wilson Trophy competition to decide the 2009 British Open Team Racing Championship was blessed by the weather gods with perfect conditions for the second consecutive day. Bright sunshine just managed to take the edge off the early morning chill as racing got underway at nine sharp this morning, in eight to ten knots of breeze.
For overnight leaders Woonsocket Rockets it was a question of ‘what a difference a day makes’ as they failed to find their sparkling form from the previous day and suffered the ignominy of starting with three straight defeats to West Kirby sailing Club, the Lions and the West Kirby Hawks respectively. This unfortunate run sent them plummeting down the order for quite some time but happily for them they regained some composure later in the day and recorded important wins against the Avenue Allstars and the Royal St George SC to keep their challenge alive.
Whilst the lighter conditions meant competitors had to be much more wary of falling foul of the on the water umpiring team through the use of illegal propulsion techniques, it also produced some simply superb team racing. At times the speed and ferocity of the team racing manoeuvres left the spectators in the lakeside grandstand gasping, cheering and applauding in a manner more akin to a Wimbledon Centre Court crowd on finals day.
Mike Zani, captain of the New York Yacht Club confirmed that the standard of sailing at this year’s Wilson Trophy was of an extremely high level, but confessed that he and his squad were a little ring rusty. ‘The difference between the good teams and the really good teams is the speed of execution of the moves. Some are just able to eliminate some of the thinking time by making the plays almost instinctively. For us, it’s not like we don’t know what to do, it’s just that we need to execute quicker.’
The more benign conditions seemed to favour both Larchmont and the Hawks and each made early progress up the leaderboard during the morning’s racing. When these two teams raced each other, the Hawks inflicted a psychologically important 1,2,3, win over the Americans. It was Larchmont however who went on to produce the best performance over the rest of the day by winning all their subsequent pairings. When racing finally concluded, in a dying breeze and with the lake bathed in evening sunshine, Larchmont topped the leader board as the only team with twelve wins over the fourteen rounds sailed so far.
The Hawks meanwhile had put on a similarly impressive display, marred only by a defeat at the hands of the Ungrateful Colonists late in the day. This loss dropped them into third place overall, behind the Lions who, despite having lost to Larchmont and WKSC, moved up to second by merit of an excellent showing yesterday. Behind these three podium places lies a tight knot of teams all within potential striking distance of top eight qualification. WKSC, Woonsocket Rockets, Ungrateful Colonists, Royal Thames, BUSA, RSGYC, Gremlins, Avenue, Hilbre Highlanders, New York, Team Firefly, Southampton, Spinnaker and Society are all in the mix for the scrap for the finals round. With the potential for one more full flight of round robin races tomorrow, there really will be everything to play for as the 2009 Wilson Trophy builds to a spectacular climax.
You can follow all the action via the Live Results service on the Official Wilson Trophy Website.