The water off the Swedish west coast was as smooth as a ballroom floor this morning. This meant a long wait for the breeze to fill in from the north before the teams could head out on the racecourse for the first day of the WMRT West Coast Cup. But once the wind filled in it brought perfect conditions for full power racing.
The newly crowned Swedish champion in match racing from the organizing club, Patrik Sturesson, came out of the starting blocks blazing with a win over highly ranked skipper Hans Wallén. “We come into this event with a completely new crew and I haven’t sailed match racing since Marstrand so it took a while to get going” commented Hans Wallén. But the collaboration with newly recruited tactician Keith Swinton, WMRT tour cardholder last season, didn’t need long to generate wins. The oldest skipper in the fleet sits on top with four wins after day one. “This is my first regatta without Anders Dahlsjö on the M32 and we had to reset in order to perform today. We will only improve over the regatta.”
In the chasing pack behind Wallén we have no less than half the fleet. Artemis Youth Racing skipper Rasmus Rosengren, Danish Olympic star Allan Nørregaard, Patrik Sturesson and Typhoon X racing’s Måns Holmberg all sit on three wins and one loss. Måns Holmberg comments on todays racing, “The conditions today were great on the waters inside of Hönö. We’re feeling confident on board and we’ve now sailed enough to find our roles on board. Except for our loss against Wallén, where we actually felt that we had an edge, everything went like we planned today.”
With very similar conditions forecast, racing continues tomorrow. Follow the results live on www.wmrt.com.
TyphoonX Racing Albert Riele causing a splash
