The 2014 Argo Group Gold Cup Quarter Finals were completed on the Hamilton Harbor, Ian Williams and Eric Monnin came through the quarters with 3-0 scores. Williams, the Alpari World Match Racing Tour leader at 12-0 is undefeated in all his races.
Racing in the Quarter-Finals was postponed from today’s schedule when what little wind there was, dropped away completely. Sunday will be starting one hour earlier, almost dawn in Bermuda.
The Quarter Finals were a first to 3-point knockout. The Four winners move on to the Semi Finals and four will go to the Consolation Round to decide places 5-8.
Standings after 1 Flight
Ian Williams 3 Marek Stanczyk 0 Taylor Canfield 3 Steffan Lindberg 1 Eric Monnin 3 Pierre Morvan 0 Johnie Berntsson 3 Bjorn Hansen 2
Ian Williams, as the skipper with the best score in the Qualifying Round, got to pick his poison in the Semis. He has chosen to race Monnin leaving Canfield and Berntsson as the other pair.
Williams and Canfield have met in the Finals of the last two Tour events. They are 1-2 on the Tour and 2-1 in the ISAF World Rankings. Monnin and Berntsson are not on the Tour, but have proved their skill in sailing the IOD sloops. Williams has sailed in 10 Gold Cups, Monnin has been in 11, Berntsson has sailed 8 and Canfield has 5 to his credit.
The flight of the day had to be final race in the match between Hansen and Berntsson.
Berntsson took the win by two boat lengths and went into the Semi Finals. Locked at 2-2, Berntsson got the lead in the fifth race only to have the PRO David Campbell-James abandon the race when there was a 40º left hand wind shift. The next start went to Hansen and he led for three full legs and 90% of the final run.
Berntsson persevered and stole Hanson’s wind, collapsing his spinnaker and rolling right over him to take the lead and forcing to gybe away with 100 yards left to the finish. Berntsson kept on going to the Hamilton side of the course on a nice rift of breeze while Hansen suffered on the right. Berntsson took the win by two boat lengths and went into the Semi-Finals.
