They start match racing young in Denmark. Continuing the line of match racing greats from this country such as Jesper Bank, Jes Gram Hansen and Jesper Radich, a new kid on the block, and hoping to continue the tradition, is first time World Match Racing Tour tour card holder Joachim Aschenbrenner.
Despite his tender age of 21, Aschenbrenner is already a seasoned match racer having been pushing hard in this discipline since his teens. It is still impressive that while being the youngest skipper this year on the World Match Racing Tour, Aschenbrenner goes into the Argo Group Gold Cup in fourth overall in the 2015 world championship rankings.
For the young Dane it will be his first time in Bermuda, competing at the Argo Group Gold Cup, one of the oldest, most revered events on the World Match Racing Tour.
“We’ve heard a lot of good things about this island, so we should have a good time over there,” says Aschenbrenner. He admits the sticking point to their Gold Cup could be adapting to the International One Designs used at the event. Created in 1935 the IOD was based on a 6-Meter design and features long overhangs, a tall rig and rudder attached to the back of the keel. At over 3000kgs momentum is king, leading to more strategic match racing. “I haven’t seen a lot of teams doing well the first time they’re there, so I don’t know how high our expectations should be.
“Our boat handling might be alright, but I think we might be quite busy working with our speed. Probably the pre-starts are a bit different with a heavy boat and I guess they don’t manoeuvre as quickly as the other boats we usually sail, so there’ll probably be a few things to get used to.”
With racing taking place in Bermuda, venue for the 2017 America’s Cup, two of the America’s Cup teams will be represented at the Argo Group Gold Cup with an Artemis Racing crew led by 2013 Gold Cup winner, Francesco Bruni and SoftBank Team Japan with Dean Barker at the helm. While Aschenbrenner competed against Bruni last year, this will be his first time against the former Emirates Team New Zealand skipper. “It will be exciting. We’ll see if these guys still remember keelboat sailing!”
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