With six of the eight quarterfinalists set at the $100,000 Argo Group Gold Cup, all eyes are on the Repechage Round to see which two crews will join the action slated for Friday.
At the end of today Chris Steele’s 36 Below Racing from New Zealand and Keith Swinton’s Black Swan Racing from Australia have the edge. They’re each at 2-0 with two of seven scheduled flights completed.
“Today was more tactful, with the wind lighter than yesterday,” said Steele, who’s competing at the Argo Group Gold Cup for the second time. Steele sees his place in the repechage as somewhat unlucky, given that he lost three races in which he had control But he was undone by penalties in each instance.
Besides Steele and Swinton the Repechage Round also includes two America’s Cup teams, Dean Barker’s SoftBank Team Japan and Francesco Bruni’s Artemis Racing, World Match Racing Tour regular Johnie Berntsson’s racing team (the event’s reigning champion from Sweden), Blythe Walker’s Team RenRe from Bermuda, and two other younger teams – Chris Poole’s Riptide Racing from the U.S. and Reuben Corbett’s racing team from New Zealand.
Six teams have already qualified for the quarterfinals, based on finishing in the top three in their respective groups in the rounds robin. The teams from Group A include Phil Robertson’s WAKA Racing, Eric Monnin’s Swiss Match Race Team and Ian Williams’ GAC Pindar.
Robertson has previously finished fourth in 2011. Today he and his crew went 3-0 to overtake Monnin for the group win. He called the Argo Group Gold Cup the hardest event he’s sailed this year.
The teams from Group B are Taylor Canfield’s US One, Björn Hansen’s Nautiska Racing and Adam Minoprio’s BlackMatch.
RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup With 45 sailors entered and 15 countries represented, many familiar countries are here competing in the 2015 RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup. Debuting their countries flags for the first time, Spain’s Ignacio 'Nacho' Davila finished day one 1st overall with Norway’s Mathias Berthet in fourth and the British Virgin Island’s Rayne Duff rounding the top of the newcomer field finishing in fifth place.
After a wet and thunderous start to the day, the race committee decided to hold the first races of the day in the Hamilton Harbour in case a another squall should blow through. Once the weather settled a bit the fleet moved further out to Granaway deep to finish the day completing five races. Spain’s Davila and Norway’s Berthet reported unexpected shifty winds in the harbour and more consistent conditions in Granaway. Although the weather made for challenging races, both sailors were very pleased with the warm water temperatures.
RenaissanceRe Junior Gold Cup Day One Results
12 Nacho Davila 27 Max Wallenberg 28 Mia Nicolosi 31 Mathias Berthet 32 Rayne Duff 47 Julia Mellers 48 Peter Fagan 49 Tayte Stefaniuk 59 Christian Spodsberg 68 Gabi Czapska 70 Jordan Etemadi 71 Robbie McCutcheon 79 Sebastian Kempe 79 Campbell Patton 80 Micah Raynor Thomas 81 Thomas Westerhof 81 Fabian Magnusson 82 Massimo Contessi 89 Daniela Bartelheimer 99 Luke Madeiros 101 Emil Kjaer 102 Rian Geraghty-McDonnell 104 Joe Arrowsmith 108 Will Shapland 119 Lachie Stewart 139 Genevieve Lau 139 Christian Ebbin 140 Aiden Lopes 147 Camille Chin-Gurret 150 Azhai Smith 150 Magnus Ringstead 153 Leyli Walker 156 Fiachra McDonnell 157 Jacob Pimentel 171 Ethan Edmunds 171 Jack Hildebrand 178 Christopher Adderley 182 Teji Simons 190 Daylon Whitter 193 Jack Roberts 194 Nicholas Bridges 199 Peter Komposch 200 Skye Oliviera 209 Thomas Evans 218 Cameron Lucas
