CANFIELD COMPLETES LINE-UP FOR WORLD MATCH RACING TOUR FINAL

London (24 April, 2019) Former Match Racing World Champion and co-founder of the ‘Stars & Stripes Team USA’ America’s Cup team, Taylor Canfield, has been confirmed as the twelfth and final skipper for the World Match Racing Tour championship final in Marstrand, Sweden from 3-7 July. Canfield joins a world class line-up of eleven other professional match racing skippers including defending world Champion Torvar Mirsky (AUS), Mirsky Racing Team, and six-time world champion Ian Williams (GBR), Team GAC Pindar.

29yr old Canfield, from St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, has become a formidable name on the professional match racing circuit. A former Match Racing World Champion in 2013, he is a four-time winner of the crimson blazer at Long Beach Yacht Club’s Congressional Cup, two-time winner of the Argo Group Gold Cup in Bermuda, and has won numerous other events on the World Match Racing Tour since his Tour debut in 2011.

In December last year, Canfield was announced as helmsman for the ‘Stars & Stripes USA’ America’s Cup team under the flag of the Long Beach Yacht Club, CA. The team was confirmed as the 5^th challenger for the 36^th America’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand.

Currently ranked #15 on the WMRT leaderboard, Canfield has been awarded an invitation to the WMRT championship final due to higher ranked skippers being unable to attend the event because of other commitments. The winner-take-all championship final will give Canfield and his team the opportunity to clinch a second world title. However, with three other former world champions to contend with, it will not be an easy road to the top step of the podium.

The five-day WMRT Championship Final takes place 3-7 July in Marstrand, Sweden hosted by GKSS Match Cup Sweden. The teams will race on identical M32 carbon fibre multihulls providing close-action racing in front of the tens of thousands of spectators that flock to the picturesque island of Marstrand each year for the event.

Confirmed skippers for the WMRT Championship Final are as follows;

1. Nicklas Dackhammer (SWE) Essiq Racing Team
2. Ian Williams (GBR) GAC Pindar
3. Yann Guichard (FRA) Spindrift Racing
4. Harry Price (AUS) Down Under Racing
5. Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Cetilar Mirsky Racing Team
6. Mans Holmberg (SWE) Strasys Racing Team
7. Johnie Berntsson (SWE) Berntsson Sailing Team
8. Markus Edegran (USA) Team Torrent
9. Phil Robertson (NZL) China One Ningbo
10. Pieter-Jan Postma (NED) Sailing Team NL
11. Daniel Björnholt (DEN) Youth Vikings Denmark
12. Taylor Canfield (USA)

Full details of each team including skipper bios and crew lists will be announced in the run up to the July event and made available on the WMRT website.

For more information on WMRT, visit www.wmrt.com and follow us on social media by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

NOTES TO THE EDITOR

Founded in 2000, the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) promotes the sport of match racing around the world and is the longest running global professional series in the sport of sailing. The World Tour represents a series of independently organised and officially sanctioned match racing events. Teams accumulate points from each of the events towards an overall WMRT global ranking, the top twelve teams from which compete in the WMRT Championship Finals at the end of the season.

The WMRT is awarded ‘Special Event’ status by the sport’s world governing body – World Sailing – and the winner of the WMRT each year is crowned World Sailing Match Racing World Champion. Previous Champions include Bertrand Pace (FRA), Sir Ben Ainslie (GBR), Jesper Radich (DEN), Magnus Holmberg (SWE), Peter Holmberg (USA), Peter Gilmour (AUS), Ian Williams (GBR), Adam Minoprio (NZL), Taylor Canfield (ISV), Phil Robertson (NZL) and Torvar Mirsky (AUS).

The WMRT is a match racing competition with racing taking place in identically supplied racing yachts which change for each event and which place a firm focus on teamwork, strategy and skill. Racing takes place close to shore to create stadium-style viewing for spectators.

Current WMRT leaderboard (for full leaderboard, click here)

GKSS Match Cup Sweden 2018

Sailing the M32 multihull

WMRT and Match Racing World Champion 2013

Argo Group Bermuda Gold Cup