MOONSON CUP : World Champion Minoprio wins over Ainslie

The Monsoon Cup, the final event of the World Match Racing Tour, with MYR 1.57 millon (approxUS$454,000) prize money was sailed on the Pulau Duyong basin in Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia this week.

Saturday Adam Minoprio and his ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing crew of Tom Powrie, David Swete, Nick Blackman and Dan McLean won the ISAF World Match Racing Championship on the way to the Monsoon Cup finals.

On Sunday the new World Champion sailed against the legendary Ben Ainslie, 32 year old British sailor, three-time Olympic gold medallist and ISAF World Sailor of the Year in 1998, 2002 and 2008. Ainslie’s mainsheet hand is double Olympic Gold medallist Iain Percy and the balance of his crew Matt Cornwell, Christian Kamp and Mike Mottl are considered amongst the best in the world.

The clearly elated Minoprio said ’That last breeze call was the defining moment. It’s been a very intense event for us. We came in thinking that if we focussed on winning the Monsoon Cup, the ISAF World Match Racing Championship result would look after its self.

’We just scraped into the quarter finals, but it went pretty well after that.

’We were always keen to meet Ben and his great crew in the final. We’ve done it twice before in Bermuda. We beat them to win the final of the Bermuda Gold Cup in 2008 and they beat us in the same event in 2009.

’They are a great team and considering how many other sailing events they are involved in, their ability to switch focus to match racing is very impressive.

’Ben and his team don’t generally get caught up in trying to tangle people up in the pre-start. He’s very focussed on getting to the line fast. He doesn’t smash the other guy at the start ; he just has a little bit more speed.

’He’s a fast sailor and its tricky to counter that and that’s how he got us in Bermuda, so today we concentrated on trying to tie him up at the start and that worked for us.’

Ben Ainslie related ’A pretty disappointing day. Everything we did was wrong and the spinnaker coming down on the last run really capped it off.

’We are pleased for Adam and his boys... they gave us a lesson today. We have more work to do as a team.

’It’s great to make the final in this last Tour event of the year. For us, the focus of the World Match Racing Tour has been around trying to build ourselves up ; mainly the relationship between Iain Percy and myself in terms of an after guard relationship based around the Cup.

’It’s been a little bit frustrating that we haven’t been able to do more World Tour events and we feel we have a good crack at winning the Tour outright and we are keen to do just that in the future. For us it’s been a great opportunity to up our skill level in terms of match racing.

’Kuala Terengganu has provided some really fascinating racing, especially the tactical challenges of the last couple of days with the race course being split (by the river flows).

’In more classic match racing venues generally there aren’t that many passing lanes and it’s relatively easy to defend a four boat length lead, whereas here even a ten boat lead isn’t enough at times.

’This has been a great event. We watched the television coverage for the first time last night and we were trying to analyse some of the manoeuvres. I was amazed at the television - it’s fantastic. There is the bow cam and the mast cam and Andy Green cam ; it’s really good and I’m really impressed. It’s far better than the coverage of the last America’s Cup and something which should be incorporated in the Cup in the future.’

2009 Monsoon Cup Results

 1st - Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
 2nd - Ben Ainslie (GBR) TeamOrigin
 3rd - Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
 4th - Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team ALL4ONE
 5th - Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
 6th - Phil Robertson (NZL) WAKA Racing
 7th - Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team
 8th - Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team
 9th - Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge
 10th - Francesco Bruni (ITA) Team Azzurra
 11th - Ian Williams (GBR) Team Pindar
 12th - Hazwan Hazim Dermawan (MAS) Taring Pelangi Team

2009 World Match Racing Tour Results

 Adam Minoprio - ETNZ BlackMatch Racing - 138 points
 Torvar Mirsky - Mirsky Racing Team - 97 points
 Ben Ainslie - TeamOrigin - 95 points
 Peter Gilmour - YANMAR Racing - 89 points
 Mathieu Richard - French Match Racing Team - 89 points
 Ian Williams - Team Pindar - 75 points
 Sebastien Col - French Match Racing Team ALL4ONE - 59 points
 Damien Iehl - French match racing Team - 54 points

 Press info Moonson Cup