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Latest News...
FMJ Racing Climb To 15th In The World!
In the latest match racing rankings FMJ Racing have risen to the highest they have been on the ranking list. Previously ranked 18th the team are now in the top 15 in the world! This gives FMJ a boost ahead of their first World Match Racing Tour event of the year, The Korea Match Cup starting on the 29th of May.
The Full Metal Jacket will be looking to make a mark as they go up against the top match racers in the world. At the last World Tour event, The Monsoon Cup in Malaysia FMJ Topped the leaderboard for the round robin and narrowly missed out on the semis going down 3-2 in the quaters to Johnie Berntsson (SWE), a WMRT card holder. The team will be looking to top that proformance in Korea and stomp their mark on the World Tour!
FMJ Into The Korea Match Cup 2012!
After three days of racing the Full Metal Jacket have pulled off victory in the 2012 Korea Match Cup Qualifier.
In the finals FMJ faced David Gilmour (Team Gilmour) in a first to win three final. Conditions were cold and blustery making for some interesting yachting. The boys put in a solid performance to take down Gilmour 3-1 in some tight match racing action. With a small pre start area and gusts of up to 20 knots it was hard to get clean starts and penalty's came often. In our first race we infringed and received a penalty which we cleared at the second top mark and went on to win the match, in the second we were handed a double penalty off the line meaning one had to be taken straight away. This resulted in a loss but amped the boys up for the next two races and with that we sailed well with good boat handling to take out the regatta.
We now travel back to New Zealand for a month of training in preparation for the Korea Match Cup, The World Match Racing Tours second event on the calendar. We look forward to it and are very excited to go up against the worlds best!
FMJ 5th at the Monsoon Cup
After qualifying for the Monsoon Cup, by winning the Asian Match racing Championships Full Metal Jacket jumped into this regatta finding form early. Taking down a number of higher ranked skippers during the Qualifying Stage, including a streak of wins against Tovar Mirsky, Ian Williams and Francesco Bruni, FMJ topped the leaderboard. This gave us the privilege of having the favoured entry and the choice of opponent to race in the best of 5 quarter final round.
We chose to race Johnnie Berntsson from Sweden, WMRT tour card holder who qualified 8th. It was an exciting quarter final that went to the fifth match with both teams tied on 2 wins apiece. In the final race we led around the first two marks but a split on the second beat gave him some leverage and he found better pressure and was able to slip by us for the win. The team were a little disappointed with the loss after being so close to a semi final berth at the world’s toughest match racing event.
Hitting the dock we were upbeat finishing the regatta in 5th place was a great achievement and we proved to a lot of people that we are worthy of racing at this level and are determined to gain a WMRT tour card for next season.
FMJ Win Asian Match Racing Championships
After four days of racing in Terengganu, Malaysia, Full Metal Jacket Racing have won the Asian Match Racing Championships and with it an entry to the Monsoon Cup.
The Monsoon Cup is the final round of the World Match Racing Tour, it will be staged in the same waters as the Asian Champs off the Riaz-Heritage Resort, Terengganu from the 22nd to the 27th of November.
The team sailed consistently in the qualifying stages of the Asian Match Racing Championships to qualify 1st into the semifinals. In the semifinals we chose to race Chin Yew Seah from Hong Kong, he proved tough to beat in the round robin stage but with strong starting and solid breeze calls we took him down 3-0. This put us up against David Gilmour in the finals who we lost the first race to, but then came through to win 3-1.
We are now in Baiona Spain for the Master de espana Grade 2 event.
FMJ Win Seven Feet Cup
Harry and Will sailing with two local's from Vladivostok win the Grade 2 Seven Feet Cup defeating fellow kiwi Laurie Jury 3-0 in the final.
The event was held out of the Seven Feet Yacht Club in Vladivostok Russia, an interesting area of the world and a place of much development. Sailing in Platu 25s we were confident of a top performance with lots of Platu racing under our belt back in NZ and after overcoming the language barrier with our crew mates the team put in a dominating performance winning a total of 18 races only dropping 1.
Our next regatta is 'International Match Race France', a grade 1 regatta held out of Pornichet starting on the 28th of August. For this event we have Garth Ellingham from Waka racing joining the team as our bowman Shaun Mason has flown home to compete in Hamilton Island Race Week on Georgia and Brad Farrand will now switch to bow duties. This is going to be a great regatta and the team is really looking forward to racing at the higher level of competition.
Will keep you posted with twitter and report updates.
Full Metal Jacket Racing have a convincing win in the Parnu Sailing Week Grade 2!
We started the regatta strong only losing one race in the round robin which put us in 2nd place, easily through to the semifinals. With the different shifty breeze on final day the team was confident with picking the fast lanes, beating Keith Swinton 2-0. In the finals we were up against Aon Racing helmed by Reuben Corbett ranked 13th, the team started the first start ahead and grew the lead until a split on the first run where Aon Racing got ahead of us to win the race. Learning from the first race Full Metal Jacket was on fire, picking the shifts up wind and downwind to get ahead and stay ahead in the next two races to put us 2-1 up. Before the final race the breeze shifted almost 180 degrees and filled in to around 12knots, we started with an even start and headed left to the wall calling 'water' on Aon Racing and a tacking duel ensued all the way to the top of mark where we rounded close behind pushing hard which forced an error by Corbett an Aon wiped out letting us slide past and extent the lead to win the final race and the regatta!
1st Place at the Maritim Cup
After three days of racing in picturesque Finland we have won the Maritim Cup grade 2, topping the round robin with a score line of 9-1 and then taking out the semis and finals 2-0 and 3-0 respectively. The team put in a solid effort throughout the regatta to come away being only beaten once.
After finishing the round robin on top of the leader boardwe chose to race local sailor Robert Nyberg. We led from start to finish in both races to put us straight into the finals where we met Olli-Pekka Lumijärvi. In the finals we won the first two races with clean starts and accurate breeze calls but in the third we started slightly disadvantaged but after picking a couple of shifts we were leading by the top mark and we extended from there to win the regatta.
We have started the European leg of our tour with a solid win and hope to build on that going into Match Race Germany, the 2nd World Match Racing Tour event of the year, next week. The regatta starts Tuesday the 24th so look out for our reports and you can follow the racing at http://www.matchrace.de/ or the team website www.fmjracing.com .
First Day at the Maritim Cup
We have just come in off the water in Helsinki after the first days racing at the grade 2 Maritim Cup. It was a solid day for the boys with 4 wins from 4 matches putting us up the top of the leader board, but there is still a lot of racing to go in the round robin with 11 teams competing.
This is our first time in J80 type boats but we are going well with solid boat handling and sailing fast. The breeze today was very gusty and of moderate strength so positioning for the gusts was very important. With good starts and smart tactics we won all our races by comfortable margins giving us confidence going into tomorrow’s racing.
For the past couple weeks after our regatta in Korea Will, Harry and Shaun have been in New York and Weymouth. In NY we sailed out of the Oakcliff Sailing Centre where we competed in a clinic regatta and also coached some local sailors. We also had the opportunity to train in a Nacra 20 catamaran for a few days quickly getting addicted to the excitement of multihull sailing. After this we travelled to Weymouth where we joined the British Olympic match racing team to do some intensive training in Elliot 6’s.
2nd at Korea Match Cup Qualifier
Full Metal Jacket finish 2nd at the Korea Match Cup Qualifier losing to fellow kiwi Reuben Corbett 2-0 in the final.
It was a tough event for the boy's after losing our pitman Jono Spurdle when he accidentally cut his hand we had a bit on with ring-in crew throughout the regatta. We managed to scrape into the semi finals on 8 wins and three losses.
Evan Walker was top qualifier and he choose to race us in the semi's making it a rematch from the Warren Jones event earlier in the year where he had beaten us and again conditions were fresh, a consistent 18 - 20kts. We sailed well against Evan, getting the starts we wanted and by keeping it simple we beat him 2-1.
In the finals we met Reuben who we have raced a lot over our few years match racing. During the prestart of the first race we were given a penalty when we sailed outside the course limitations which wasn't very smart by us. However we lead off the line and had a nice lead at the first top mark when everything began to unravel. As we bore away our vang broke and in turn our primary winch for trimming the geneker had a major cluster of ropes, meaning we couldn't trim or jybe. This allowed Reuben to pass us and sail away with the race. In the second race we had an even start but we trailed at the first top mark, coming into the bottom mark right on his tail we pushed our drop a bit late and we went 'fishing', its not very fast with the geneker in the water. So again he was able to sail off and take the race, congratulations must go to Reuben and his crew for sailing well all week and taking out the regatta.
Our next regatta is a Grade 2 in Finland leading into Match Race Germany the world tour event.
We would like to thank our principal sponsor, Chris Meads from Full Metal Jacket.
