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FMJ Racing Have Been Selected For The Red Bull Youth America's Cup!
If sailing a AC45 wasn't enough, FMJ Racing have been selected to compete in the Red Bull Youth America's Cup! It will be the first time that there has been an America's Cup for youth sailing teams after a vision from Russell Coutts and Jimmy Spithall both Oracle team members defending the America's Cup. After a selection series in late February FMJ Racing were chosen along with four other teams from around the world. Joining those selected will be another five teams backed by America's cup teams rounding up the very best youth sailors in the world! The race will be held in the AC45's from the 1-4th of September on San Francisco Bay with the Americas Cup following on from the youth.
The entry sets up a huge year of multihull sailing with the Extreme Sailing Series kicking off in Oman next week raced in Extreme 40's. The Extreme circuit is short sharp intense stadium like racing with venues from Turkey to Brazil, so it's sure to get the team up to speed with the hectic racing expected for the Youth America's Cup. For the past week and a half FMJ have been training everyday on GAC Pindar getting up to speed in the new class in preparation for the year ahead!
FMJ RACING IN OMAN TRAINING HARD FOR THE FIRST EXTREME 40 REGATTA OF THE YEAR ON GAC PINDAR!
ALL CHANGE FOR GAC PINDAR EXTREME SAILING TEAM AS TALENTED YOUTH TEAM IS ANNOUNCED
UK -31 January 2013 – GAC Pindar has announced a new line-up for their 2013 Extreme Sailing Series (ESS). Kiwi sailor Will Tiller and a talented youth team will make their ESS debut in the 1st Act of the international series that begins in Oman, March 6 – 8.
Recognised as a burgeoning talent, Tiller will be taking over from reigning match racing champion Ian Williams, who has made the decision to focus purely on his match racing commitments this year, as he eyes a 5th and record breaking world title. Joining Tiller on the GAC Pindar EX40 will be Stewart Dodson (Main), Harry Thurston (Trimmer), Matt Stevens (Bowman) and Shaun Mason (Floater). The ambitious new crew will certainly be putting in the hours to train, as they will not only be making their Extreme debut in just over a month, they will also be competing in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup that begins later this year.
In a departure from what had been anticipated, Andrew Pindar, Team Principal of GAC Pindar, made the surprise announcement earlier this week. He explained in depth how his team had been working hard to pull together a combination of sailing talent and commercial backing to allow GAC Pindar to compete in this year’s Extreme Sailing Series. Pindar also discussed the heritage of Pindar Sailing Partners and that supporting young sailors was at the very grass roots of the GAC Pindar sailing programme.
Commenting on the announcement, the GAC Pindar Principal says, “This line-up isn’t what we envisaged a few months ago but various constraints caused us to re-think and re-evaluate our plans. A conversation between GAC Pindar’s Team Director Nick Crabtree and our old friend Harry Dodson opened up the possibility of working with Will and his crew.
I first met Will at the 2011 Monsoon Cup and couldn’t help be impressed with the way he conducted himself both on and off the racecourse. Meeting talented sailors early in their careers has always been an important feature of our programme throughout our 30 year sailing history and it gives us great pleasure to add these young Kiwis to that story.”
Speaking from New Zealand, new GAC Pindar skipper Will Tiller adds, “Our team is incredibly excited at the opportunity to be partnered with one of the world’s leading sailing teams to compete in the 2013 Extreme Sailing Series. It is going to be very tough competing against the best in the business but this is the level of sailing our team has been striving to compete in and we look forward to taking up the challenge.
Our team has a predominant match racing background but with the announcement of the Youth America’s Cup, our team has shifted our focus to multihulls. We have been training all summer in Auckland, NZ using F18s and A class catamarans. At the start of February, we will begin training in an EX40 before heading out to San Francisco for the Youth AC Trials. After that, we’re straight out to Oman to begin our preparation for the first Extreme Sailing Series event in early March.”
For more information about GAC Pindar and the Extreme Sailing Series, go to:
FMJ RACING HAVE KICKED THE SEASON OFF IN GREAT FASION RACING THE RED BULL YOUTH AMERICAS CUP TRIALS ON SAN FRANCISCO BAY!
FMJ were selected to compete in the Red Bull Youth America's Cup selection Series late last year and since then the boys having been working hard in the gym and out on the water! The team arrived well prepared but not sure what to expect in regards to power, speed etc. I can tell you the team was pleasantly surprised how rewarding and exciting these cats are to sail! In saying that you have to remember that in San Francisco it is the middle of winter and a lot of warm clothes/wetsuits were needed!
FMJ had six days to come to terms with the boats along with five other team from around the globe! The first day was orientation and looking over the boats getting to know your roles etc and at the end a fitness test which had the Danish team spewing! The next three days were practice days with either a morning or afternoon session of one and a half hours (which had everyone puffing). The team developed well and felt good going into the last three days which were to be racing.
Each racing day consisted of three races of about 20 minutes each. After the nine races the team ended up in first place tied with the team from Germany. This week six more teams are sailing to try and gain a spot for the Red Bull Youth America's Cup in early September. Six spots are up for grabs and the teams will find out on the 25th!
Next regatta for FMJ is the Extreme Sailing Series in Muscat, Oman on GAC Pindar. The team is currently setting up the boat and will shortly start training for two weeks before going into the regatta! For more visit www.extremesailingseries.com.
FMJ Racing have Dominated the 2012 New Zealand Match Racing Nationals in one of the strongest fleet the nationals have ever seen!
The line up for the Nationals was tough with some great teams including Luna Rossa with former world number one Francesco Bruni on the helm, Emirates Team New Zealand coach Rod Davis and former Americas Cup skipper and Volvo veteran Gavin Brady to name a few. With this caliber of competition the regatta ranked for us as one of the toughest this year! For the first time racing was held in the new Elliot 7 youth boats replacing the Farr MRX from previous years. With fourteen entries one of the biggest fleets ever, racing started with a round robin.
The only loss of the round was to Gavin Brady who FMJ would meet later on in the finals. Winning the round robin FMJ chose to race Scott Dickson in the quarter finals. Not losing a match all day FMJ took this form through to the quarters and took down Dickson 2-0! The other three winning teams were Luna Rossa, Gavin Brady and Laurie Jury. After demolishing Jury 3-0 in the semis of Match Race France a month earlier he was the obvious choice and FMJ went to work straight away not giving the Kiwi Match Team a sniff of the lead and once again dominated 3-0! After five races in the other semi Brady came out on top setting up for a young against old battle in the final. In a epic five match battle FMJ came out victorious, not without drama on the last downwind with penalties flying left right and center resulting in the boats finishing within seconds of each other!
This was a fantastic win for FMJ to rap up a solid year of dominating performances on the world stage picking up 8 victories! Unfortunately this year FMJ have not been given entry to the Monsoon Cup, the last event on the World Tour to try and better last years 5th place, with three other Kiwi teams already invited so now instead the focus will turn to multihulls and the Youth americas Cup trials in San Fran in early February next year. The team has a F18 and also the use of a 8.5 multihull to train on in the coming months. Watch this space for some multihull action!
FMJ Racing have been training for the 2013 Red Bull Youth Americas Cup!
Here is some footage of FMJ Racing out training in a Nacra 20!
FMJ Racing advanced to their first world tour final at Match Race France!
FMJ arrived in Marseille for the sixth event on the World Match Racing Tour and FMJ's second event, the first being The Korea Match Cup. Practice day was canceled due to high winds and the first day of racing was still very windy! Racing began and it was all about boat handling and keeping the boat upright! After the round robin FMJ qualified in 8th position making the quarter finals.
Second seed and local hero Pierre-Antoine Morvan decided to race us in the quarters. After beating the Frenchman in the round robin we were confident racing him and despatched the French hopes 3-1 in a great show of yachting. It didn't get any easier for FMJ with the top qualifier Laurie Jury picking us in the semi-finals. In light to medium airs we took out the top seed 3-0 and advanced to our first World Tour final against Ian Williams!
For the final day of racing conditions were very light in the morning and by the time we got out on the water the breeze had filled to 8 knots. After going down in the first race we came out all guns blazing in the second! Half way up the first work the breeze built to 25 knots and trailing around the top mark FMJ rolled the 3 time world champion to lead around the bottom. Unfortunately we could not hold the lead around the top and went down 2-0.
FMJ Racing have taken out the Oakcliff Invitational in Oyster Bay to win the last two events on the Grand Slam Series!
Following on from the Knickerbocker cup, two bays over in Oyster Bay, Oakcliff Sailing Centre held the 2012 Oakcliff Invitational! The regatta was held over four days with a mix of conditions from 0 knots all day on day one to 30 knots on day three. We went through the qualifying stages with only one loss, this turned out to be our only loss in the regatta winning our quarterfinals, semifinals and finals in straight sets.
This was the last regatta in the Grand Slam Series which started in Chicago then moved to Detroit, and finally two regattas in New York. FMJ missed the first two regattas of the Grand Slam as the team was sailing at Hamilton Island Race Week, but came through strong in the two final events.
This has continued a very successful year for FMJ having claimed the titles at Sail of the White Nights, Parnu Sailing Week, OM Match Race, Knickerbocker Cup and now Oakcliff Invitational all Grade 2 events pushing our ranking to 9th in the world!
Next stop for the team is Pornichet, France for the Manu Minard Trophy grade 1 then down to the Mediterranean for Match Race France, the sixth event on the Alpari World Match Racing Tour.
FMJ Racing have defeated the Tre-For matchracing team from Denmark 2-0 in the finals of the Knickerbocker cup 2012!
Racing was held out of the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club on Long Island, New York in SM 40's, a great match racing yacht. The conditions were favorable for the week with good winds meaning for the first time in years the format of a round robin, quarters, semis and finals were completed.
After the round robin FMJ were in second place and were to face Taylor Canfield in the quarters. We battled hard and despite being docked a point for damage we came out with a 3-2 win to advance to the next round against David Gilmour. The team stepped up and dominated with good starts, Boat speed and boat handling to take out the semi-final 3-0! In the other semi Nicolai Sehested defeated Sally Barkow so we meet for the finals. We took down the Danish team 2-0 in a shortened final series to take out the Knickerbocker cup for 2012!
It is the fourth year in a row that a New Zealand team has won the regatta and also the fourth regatta that FMJ have won in a row! We now look forward to the next regatta the Oakcliff Invitational in Oyster Bay on the same yachts starting on Thursday the sixth!
FMJ Racing Win OM Match Race, Lake Ledro Italy.
FMJ Racing have won the O.M. Match Race for 2012! This is the teams third victory in a row and a great way to end our European tour.
The anual OM Match race is held on Lake Ledro, a small lake situated next to Lake Garda in Italy. The lake is surrounded by tall mountains meaning the wind shifts a lot from side to side making for some tough racing at times. After the completion of two round robins the race officials decided to go straight to the final between the top two teams. We qualified in first place so we raced second placed Taranacki of Poland in a first to win two final.
Taranacki won the first race leaving us in a must win position for the next race. After receiving a penalty in the pre start and trailing the Polish around the course on the last run we managed to roll, gybe and luff to offset our penalty and gybe to the finish line and take the win. In the final race we were able to win the right hand side of the start and lead around the whole course with Taranacki very close behind. On the final downwind the Polish made a charge but we were able to keep our cool and take out the regatta!
With these three wins in a row the next ranking release should take FMJ Racing inside the top 10 in the world! We now have a break until our next regatta Hamilton Island Race Week sailing on Georgia the TP 52.
FMJ Racing have won the Parnu Sailing Week taking down young Danish team, Aschenbrenner.
Parnu Sailing Week is a grade two regatta held in Parnu, Estonia. The regatta is raced on a narrow stretch of water making for some intense match race action. With the race course being narrow there is a lot of close quarters tacking and dipping and calling for room to tack, the kind of stuff you see on the new Americas Cup World Series.
The regatta started well for us ending the round robin in second place. This meant we would race Danish team TRE-FOR while in the other semi final Reuben Corbett (NZL) would face Aschenbrenner (DEN). For us the racing was very close and it went to the final match to decide who would advance. We trailed Sehested around the course until on the final run just meters from the finish line we were able to roll the Danish team and also give them a penalty.
In the other semi-final the danish were to strong for Corbett. On the final day we were greeted with rain and winds of up to 27 knots. This meant that there was a lot of emphasis on getting the boat around the course in one piece. We were able to do this and sail faster than Aschenbrenner to take out the regatta3-0 and defend our title!
Next stop for the boys is Lake Ledro, Italy for our third grade two in a row.
Full Metal Jacket Racing have won the 2012 Sails Of White Nights taking out Russian Vladimir Lipavsky in the finals!
It has been a good week here in St Petersberg with good breeze and also sun for about 20 hours of each day, not so good for sleeping! The regatta is held in the heart of the city on a river that has about two knots of water moving under you making for some interesting racing. All week the breeze was against the tide meaning leading at the top mark by ten lengths could be cut to three or even worse the trailing boat could roll so at times downwind sailing was very stressful!
We came out of the round robin in 2nd place and faced defending champion Andrew Arbozov in the quarters. We were locked in a battle going all the way to the 5th match which we won by one second! We then faced off against fellow kiwi Reuben Corbett in the semi-finals. Once again the racing was very tight with penalties coming thick and fast in 5 aggressive matches ending in a red flag protest from Corbett after he ran aground. In the other all Russian semi-final Lipavsky came out on top so we faced off in the final. With a steady breeze on the last day racing was a little less stressful and we took out the regatta 3-0!
The boys are delighted to be the youngest team inside the top 15 with a median age of 22! This result should push us even higher on the ranking list and closer to the top 10!
We now travel to Parnu, Estonia for the Parnu Sailing Week.
