Hello from BlackMatch on the final day of Portugal,
 
Following yesterdays extremely tough quarter final win against Peter Gilmour, we again didn’t make life easy on ourselves today in the semi final against the current World Champion Ian Williams and after winning our way through to the final, we lost to a rampant Torvar Mirsky.
 
The semi finals were shortened to the first team to win 2 matches and the first race saw us take a decisive victory. We forced Williams to the pin end of the start line where he did not have enough room to build speed and he was over when the start gun went. Once he had returned to the start line we held a significant advantage and sailed defensively for the remainder of the race to seal the win. In the second match we thought we had a comfortable buffer after forcing a penalty on them in the pre-start   and holding the lead until the final upwind. But in the shifty conditions here in Portugal the race is never over, especially against such a fierce competitor and Williams managed to ‘dial down’ at us on starboard tack nearing the top mark to offset his penalty and gain a lead that was too big for us to comeback from. Although we felt we totally threw this race away we bounced back well in the deciding race to take it out by a huge margin and secure our place in the final.
 
Perhaps it was the fact we had to beat a triple World Match Racing Champion and the current double World Champion on our road to the final, but we just didn’t hit our straps against the talented Australian who took out the final 2 nil. Both our quarter and semi finals were extremely gruelling and took a lot out of us, which may have contributed to us not putting up more of a fight, but a deserved Torvar Mirsky sailed extremely well to seal his first World Match Racing Tour Victory.
 
Our second placing here in Portugal has seen us build a nice 12 point buffer on the overall World Match Racing Tour Standings and we are very happy with this, but we are particularly looking forward to our next event in Sweden. BlackMatch would like to congratulate Torvar Mirsky and his crew on an incredible display of sailing this week and a magnificent victory. It was great to see the two young ‘Line 7’ sponsored teams in a World Tour Final and we are hoping it’s a sign of things to come.     
 
For all media coverage on this event please visit www.worldmatchracingtour.com .
 
BlackMatch would like to again thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 New Zealand. We would also like to thank our yacht club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Emirates Team New Zealand.  
 

Hello from BlackMatch,
 
After bowing out of the quarterfinals we still had a fight on our hands to secure 5th place on the final day. We chose to race Torvar Mirsky in our first match which left Peter Gilmour to take on Mathieu Richard. There was a different vibe on the boat and we totally dominated the young Australian, forcing a penalty on him in the pre-start then sailing away for a comfortable victory. It was a similar story against Peter Gilmour, we gained the favoured right hand side of the course and had better speed off the start line which gave us the initial advantage, we were able to capitalise on this to secure 5th place at the 2009 Korea Match Cup.
 
After the disappointment of the previous day it was great to get some form back and beat the two Australian teams. Reward for our 5th placing is the fact that we have regained the World Match Racing Tour lead, with a 1 point advantage over Ben Ainslie and we are definitely happy about this.
 
This week we are off to Valencia to train in the Swedish Match 40 boats ahead of our upcoming regatta in Portugal, where we are looking forward to another good week of sailing.     
 
For all media coverage on this event please visit www.worldmatchracingtour.com <http://www.worldmatchracingtour.com/>  .
 
BlackMatch would like to again thank their sponsors FedEx Express and Line 7 New Zealand. We would also like to say a special thank you to David Ross from Fedex Express and to Nigel Smith and Debbie Fowler who flew to Korea from Singapore to support us throughout the week, it was great to have such an enthusiastic fan club and such a shame we couldn’t quite bring it home for them. We would also like to thank our yacht club the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Emirates Team New Zealand.  
 
 OVERALL RESULTS
1st Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza
2nd Ian Williams (GBR) Bahrain Team Pindar
3rd Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
4th Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Team Onboard
5th Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
6th Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
7th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing
8th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
9th Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/K-Challenge
10th Laurie Jury (NZL)
11th Philippe Presti (FRA) French Match Racing Team
12th Byeong Ki Park (KOR)