See you later.
David L crossed the finish line to win Matt Reis-Brahms.
Bruni wins and takes Matt Reis-Germany.
And Ian Williams takes the second place and the win here in Portugal.
Bruni wins Stenna Match Cup Suite.
Bruni wins Stenna Match Cup Suite.
The Upper Engadine is one of the most scenic valleys in Switzerland,
residing at 1,800 metres above sea level.
At its centre, it boasts one of the most popular holiday destinations in the world,
breathtaking snow-capped mountains, impressive alpine scenery and secluded lakes.
This is San Maritz and home of the San Maritz match race.
This is the sixth event of the ISAF World Match Racing Tour,
where some of the world's best match racers will be sailing Blue 26s
as they compete for the 150,000 Swiss franc prize purse.
Match racing is a complex game of rules and tactics,
but with the game in a nutshell, here's Andy Green.
Match racing is the most claditorial sailing discipline.
It pits two boats against each other on a very short race course.
The two teams battle for advantage during a four-minute period before the start gun,
then sail upwind to the top mark where they hoist spinnickers.
Turning back downwind onto the run to the lure mark,
the spinnickers must be dropped for the second lap.
The races usually last two or sometimes three laps,
and the action is unpaired on the water using a system of flags.
Each boat is assigned a color, either blue or yellow,
and the sailors raise a red and yellow flag to protest
if they think their opponent has broken a rule.
The umpires announce their decision raising the appropriate blue or yellow flag
to signify the boat that has offended.
If a red flag is raised as well,
it means the infringement is more severe and the penalty,
turning the boat through three-quarters of a circle,
must be taken immediately.
Otherwise, the penalty can be taken any time before the finish.
The first across the finish line is the winner.
All 12 teams are here to win themselves the event title
and be crowned King of the Mountain.
But the eight tour card holders attending also have their eyes on another prize.
It's the ISAF World Match Racing Tour title,
and any points claimed here could help them secure it.
But with only two events left before the final in Malaysia,
time is running out for the teams to move up the tour leaderboard.
And with few points between them, the top three may look unbeatable.
But the beauty of the World Match Racing Tour is that anything can happen.
Tour director Craig Mitchell has all the answers
when it comes to the complexities of becoming this year's world champion.
So we're here in Samarit, which is event number six on the World Match Racing Tour,
and we're really into the business end of the series now.
And by that we mean that all the tour card holders
are all going to start scrambling to get some points on the board.
Certainly the guys that are looking to score as many points as possible,
Matthew Richard, Damian Neal, Bjorn Hansen, Torval Mursky,
they all really need to up their games to collect more points here.
They're here, they've got to get on the podium
in order to give themselves a chance to take that world championship title.
So it's still all to play for in Samarit's,
the perfect playground for any sports enthusiast.
But there's one reason in particular that sailors come flocking to the regattas here,
and it's something tour leader Francesco Bruni will be thinking about
if he wants to maintain his lead.
We are here in Samarit, on top of the world,
and we have the beautiful Maloia Wind.
This place is famous for the Maloia Wind.
It's a strong wind, pretty nice, shifty, but at the same time strong.
It comes from the land, every wind comes from the land here, obviously.
We are in a lake, but the Maloia Wind is by far the best wind here.
It's a thermic wind, and it's usually a sign of good weather.
Behind me is the race course.
It's a crazy race course.
Wind from everywhere, very hard to predict.
We have wind coming from every direction,
especially when it's cloudy or rainy,
and when it comes from the north, it's also very, very hard racing for us.
Very hard to predict the wind shift,
and there can be some huge holes in the race course.
Our record in Samarit is not great.
We have been here twice,
and once we were in second in the round robin,
and we lost in the quarter-final against Leprestif.
And last year, out of the quarter-finals on a tight break situation,
so we need to sail better this year,
not to have those sort of problems and to get at least to semifinals.
We feel strong.
It's about having your lucky week.
I'm always wearing this hat, and I think it's a lucky one.
I was wearing that in Sweden as well, but it didn't work.
I'm giving him a second chance this week.
So, with the good knowledge of the typical sailing conditions here,
it's time to test the boats out on the race course.
And we hopped on with Francesco and his crew to see what they could tell us.
The Blues 26 are good boats for this lake in Samarit.
They are pre-light boats, all four-person,
and they are fairly quick, in light wind and strong wind.
You don't need much wind to get them going,
so they are perfect for these conditions.
They are pretty good also in flat water,
and you get flat water here.
The steering system is a pretty basic one,
tiller extension, very normal for this size of boats.
The spinnaker is a normal, traditional, symmetric spinnaker,
quite big in size for this size of boat,
and that's why downwind they go pretty fast.
I'm Pellugi De Felicia, I'm a trimmer on the Bruni Racing Team.
Matteo Guadro, Bauman.
My name is Massimo Portoleto, I sail with the Bruni Racing Team.
My position on the boat is the main.
We really like this boat because it's very physical, athletic.
There's a lot going on during the race and it's very shifting.
I have to help with the trimming.
I'm busy looking at the path coming on the lake.
I really like it because finally we're racing in the small boats too.
Normally we have big boats.
I have to do a much more job compared to the boat where we sail in Fires.
It's a little bit more athletic and memory when you were young
and sailing with the small boat.
It's a very good boat, accelerated very quickly.
And it's very, very, very nice for us to be sailing here.
We're pleased to use this boat.
The team in the lead seem confident after practice,
but they can't relax yet.
They've got some serious competition.
Welcome back to Stage 6 of the World Match Racing Tour,
the San Maritz match race.
It's not long until we reach the final event
and although they can't relax yet,
the three teams at the top of the table have a real chance to increase their lead.
Currently in second place, Peter Gilmore is absent from this event,
giving third-placed Ian Williams a better chance than ever to rock it to the top.
His team have won two events in a row,
the Portomão Portugal match cup and the Stena match cup Sweden,
but could they make it a hat-trick?
We caught up with the team who seem to have the winning formula.
This is Team GAC Pindar.
We have Bill Hardesty on tactics,
Matt Castee on the bow and Jerry Mitchell trimming.
What's important when picking a team to get the right blend of skills on board,
we have to be the right weight.
It's important to be up to the weight limit.
Also to get the right chemistry with the different personalities on board.
We are still learning about each other and about each other's traits.
So I think that's the biggest thing that we're still working on.
I think where we've been strong is we've won the bouts
where we haven't been sailing as well as at other times.
We've had very strong moments.
Sweden was a great example.
What we did well was coming back from not sailing that well
and actually getting our elbows out a little bit,
being a bit of street fighting and coming through and winning.
I've always said that on the world map tracing tour,
it's very hard to really build momentum
because we were in Sweden with a five-man team on the sea.
Now we're here in Samuritz at 1,800 metres on four-man boats,
very shifty winds as a big thing.
I think it's really about the case of us starting again, really,
thinking about this event specifically, what's going to be important here
and then going out and trying to execute that.
My name's Jerry Mitchell.
I'm 40 years old and I'm a trimmer on the boat.
Bill Hardesty, age 36, tactician.
Mark Cassidy, 33, barman.
This team underwater is very structured.
Everybody has their defined role and responsibility.
It's quite different sailing with Ian,
but you're heavily involved with most parts of the map trace
and you feel a lot more involved in the team and the winds.
We somehow gel really well together.
You can't really put a finger on it,
but when we go out and sail everything clicks really well.
Still far we've been able to put some pretty good regarded together,
so we keep doing what we can do.
The toughest part of the job is the physicality of it, I think.
Definitely, I'm probably one of the older guys here
and there's one of the more physical jobs on the boat.
Yeah, you know, the tough thing about being a tactician
is partially making decisions,
but you have to kind of go through life-making decisions in a lot of ways
and if you're worried about making bad decisions,
it's not a good job for you.
I guess the excitement, trying to make sure all the boat handlings
as flawless as it can be, so I don't screw it up for these guys.
No, I think obviously Francesco is a long way ahead
in the World Map Tracing Tour,
but with the way the points work and the discard system,
you really just need to wait till the end to see how it all shakes out.
I think going into Malaysia, that's when the pressure really comes on.
Until that, you've just got to get ready
and treat each event as a single event
and try and get as good of a result as you can.
So, for the two tour leaders,
this event is a chance to creep ahead,
but for those at the bottom of the tour leaderboard,
it's a fight for survival.
Johnny Barnes on Skipper in the Boards of Sailing Team.
We have 34 points, we can't place in the tour.
We have an average start of the year,
and we had an average start of the World Tour season.
This is the first season for us.
Walker Ray saying ninth place, 39 points.
Our goals at the moment have changed quite a lot
since the start of the year,
and I think we're just aiming to get into the top six
after the next two events.
Perichard, French match resting team,
eighth place, 53 points.
The goal is to go on the podium again of the season.
French match resting team, seventh place, 57 points.
The point is possible to win the title
and I think focus on events after events.
The Wave must get fourth place, 59 points.
Quite a few points behind Francesco Bruni and the leaders,
but we're still in with a chance for the world title,
so we're just going to go out there and do our best.
Adrian Lyon-Partners, fourth place, 59 points.
We're aiming for a podium position.
Probably means going to the podium every time,
and we need to definitely do a top result in one soon at the end.
The event kicks off with the qualifying stage,
where all the teams race each other once.
It's crucial to win as many races as possible
as the eight teams with the most wins
go through to the knockout stages.
In Sammeritz, the winner of the qualifying round
goes directly into the semi-finals,
so there was plenty to play for when the teams hit the water.
In the early rounds of qualifying,
the two French tour card holders,
Damien Yelle and Mathieu Vichard
showed some classic match-racing maneuvers.
Yelle to Windward and Rishard is to Leward.
Rishard clearly looking to win the pin.
He's very tight on the layline,
and Damien Yelle looks like he's going to be forced to tack away.
Just holding that Windward berth as the gun goes,
and Rishard nails the pin, very tight there indeed.
And Yelle falls to tack away immediately,
so first blood goes to Mathieu Rishard.
Rishard winning this event last year,
looking to defend,
taxed back onto port.
Looks to be in a good position,
but they've got to go all the way to the right-hand side.
On the start against Damien,
we wanted to start at the pin,
the pin end of the starting line,
because it was a bit favored at the pin,
and we thought that there could be some good left shifts
on the bit,
and on the very right of the bit,
they got a right-hand shift,
so we tried to libo them,
but we were not in a good position to libo,
and they managed to stay in Windward of us,
and then both boats were in the zone,
so he was inside boat and he was entitled to room.
Puffs of breeze coming downwind.
The skipper is trying to get the best line of pressure
to try and roll down on top of Yelle,
who is still ahead.
As Spinnaker has come down,
Yelle is a little bit late and is bound there,
just struggling to get the Spinnaker,
and not a good drop on board Damien Yelle's boat at all.
Rishard much more under control with better speed.
Rishard just manages to squeeze inside,
but did he hit the sticks?
Looks pretty bad to me,
and the umpires agree that is a blue flag,
so that's against Mathieu Rishard.
Rishard has managed to squeeze ahead,
but the problem is he's got a penalty outstanding,
he's got a penalty against him,
he's got to find a way of either getting enough distance
in between the two of them to do the penalty,
or put a penalty on his opposition.
When we are leading with a penalty,
the goal is always to try to increase the lead,
and really at the end,
if we see that we don't have enough lead,
we try to slow down and to wait for the opponent's
appreciation of distance.
Don't think he can do it.
Just doesn't have enough lead,
in fact not even close.
Damien El is within two boat lengths,
so Mathieu Rishard is going to have to squeeze it
around the committee boat,
he's going to have to force his opposition into a mistake.
At some point they've got to decide
that slowing down is the best option.
Generally speaking, we try to create a envelope,
which can offer you some possibilities.
There is also the possibility to go
in the zone of the committee boat.
If you have the leading boat and you reach the zone,
if the other one follows you in the stern,
it's good because you can have the possibility to attack twice.
So here we go, decision made now.
Get the spinnaker down.
El is still trying to keep clear,
and he's matching spinnaker down.
They're past the committee boat on the wrong side
of the finishing line.
So Rishard trying to push El up,
trying to force him into a penalty,
as on board with Rishard squeezing past the committee boat.
Now El has to try and get around the top,
and he's going for it.
He's still got to keep clear, remember,
and he goes Rishard for the luff.
Rishard luffs, and there's the pin end of the line,
and El's going for it.
He's going to try and get within the circle,
allowing him to get down towards the finish.
Ah, El just squeezes around.
He calls for room.
Rishard has to give it to him,
and El takes a much-deserved and hard-fought win.
Rishard may have lost this match,
but there are still plenty more teams to sail.
Join us after the break
for the outcome of the qualifying stage.
Welcome back to the San Moritz match race.
As the teams locked horns in the agile Blue 26s,
there were tight manoeuvres, tricky wind shifts,
and some fast-paced sailing.
And inevitably, we saw some big names going home.
For Phil Robertson and his team,
this was their first time in San Moritz,
and despite two straight wins
on the last day of qualifying,
their overall performance just wasn't good enough.
Yeah, it's been really difficult, to be honest.
We've really battled all week.
Today was perfect.
We won our last two races, which is ideal,
and probably put us up the board
a little bit higher than we were,
so that's fantastic, and that's what we're after.
But I don't think we're going to get through.
I think we're one point shy of making the top seven,
and we may get to eighth,
which is a normal regatta, top eight quarter-final,
but here's a little difference.
I think, yeah, we'll struggle to get to seventh,
and I think it's out of reach now.
Also making his San Moritz match-race debut
was Jesper Adig.
He faced Torvar Mersky for his last race,
but couldn't pull a win out of the bag.
We had our final race against Torvar Mersky
in the round robin here.
Unfortunately, we were in the situation
where it didn't matter too much about the result.
We might have been ninth or tenth,
depending on the outcome of that race,
but for sure not moving on to the quarters,
which is really disappointing,
and it's a little bit of a nail in the coffin
for our dreams of doing well on the tour.
That's it?
That's it.
That was tough.
Shifty breeze and a little bit difficult boat to sail for me.
Everyone's got the issues,
but I guess I had a harder time
than most forgot how to deal with it.
The final showdown of the qualifying
saw the two heavyweights go head-to-head,
Francesco Bruni against Ian Williams.
It was a race that could prove pivotal
to the world title standings,
and it saw the fall of the current tour leader.
Well, our last race was a good start by us.
We were leading the race.
We had a little bit of a stretch in the beginning,
then they came back,
and at the top mark we had one,
and a half two-boat length lead.
Unfortunately, today was not our day.
When we ran the mark, there was absolutely no wind.
They came from behind with a puff.
I mean, they overtook us.
The match was still pretty close,
but when they were leading then,
the wind went completely to the right,
and there was a one-way track,
and it was easy for them to keep the lead.
Obviously, it's a big disappointment for us
because it's the second time after Sweden
that we don't get to the quarter-finals.
It's a big disappointment, and we have to deal with it.
We are going to try to fight until the last moment
to get a little closer to have a chance in Malaysia.
So the tour leader went out early,
paving the way to a shake-up on the tour leaderboard.
At the end of the qualifying stage,
the scores looked like this.
The formidable team, GAC,
Pindar, took first place,
advancing them straight into the semi-finals,
and the remaining six took to the water for the quarter-finals.
First up, Johnny Bernsen chose to race Pierre Antoine Morvan.
Their first race saw some gutsy manoeuvres in the pre-start.
We join Andy Green for the action.
Johnny Bernsen had experienced hand-on-the-world match-racing tour
on starboard, holding out Pierre Antoine Morvan,
one of the new boys, but Morvan does a great job
of getting out of the port dial-up
where he was in a little bit of trouble,
and Bernsen now is on the port side,
on the danger side of this pre-start.
Here comes Morvan right at him,
and Morvan has turned this around completely.
Bernsen having to avoid.
We're on board with Bernsen.
He's just trying to hook Morvan
because Bernsen looks like he's early for the pin.
It's a difficult time here for Johnny Bernsen.
Boats get very close.
Bernsen pulls out the wide flag.
I think, well, they're the umpires.
Look at that. That's a sea of flags,
but the crucial thing here, Bernsen over the line.
Morvan got a penalty,
but Bernsen got a penalty as well,
so they're cancelled out.
Look at that. Morvan sails away.
Bernsen has to go and recross the line.
Bernsen couldn't catch up with Morvan
after his poor pre-start and lost the race.
It seemed his pick of opponent had come back to bite him,
as he went on to lose the next two matches.
Johnny Bernsen was going home.
It's always tough picking your opponent
because in these fields, it's so many good sailors.
We picked Morvan because we thought
he had some advantage in the pre-starts against him.
Unfortunately, it was a bad choice.
He did a really good job,
but he and his crew sailed really well today
and beat us with 3-0.
Not much to say, but they were the best crew today.
Next to race was Damian Yell,
and he faced Bjorn Hansen.
It seemed that Yell's fate was going the same way as Bernsen's.
He lost the first two races,
leaving a third-must-win match.
We join Andy Green for the dramatic pre-start.
Old foes Damian Yell from France
and Bjorn Hansen from Sweden.
He took that for sure.
An already-action wide flag from Hansen.
Yell looked pretty close to Hansen's turn,
and there are the umpires.
That's against the Frenchman Damian Yell.
Yell now loves Hansen,
avoiding to keep clear.
He has to. He's a windward boat,
but it looks like Yell loved him too quick.
Umpires decided, yellow flag.
Frenchman cops another penalty. That's two.
So now Hansen just has to do a safe start,
which he does, puts the bow hard down.
Yell has to do his penalty,
and surely this is night night Damian Yell.
Hansen goes on to lead all the way around the course,
taking the score to 3-0
and knocking Yell out of the competition.
It was a fantastic quarter-final series for us.
We came in as the last crew,
and we felt that now we have everything to win
and nothing to lose, so we said,
just go out and have some fun.
We made some good starts,
and then we sailed very well on the course too,
so the guys are doing a fantastic job,
and it's really fun to sail today.
We lost the start to the first, the second and third.
The third is a very, very bad.
Damian can be quite aggressive sometimes,
and we experienced it a couple of times,
especially in the pre-start in one of the races
when he came and fish-tailed us behind,
and as soon as it was one millimeter overlap,
it was four guys just shouting,
and they were focusing more on shouting
than on sailing, I think.
It's not so bad to the result.
The team work, the work team is very good.
I think the manoeuvre is clean,
but just my pre-start is not very famous,
and I'm not happy for that.
The last quarter-final pairing
saw Mathieu Richard face Torvarnersky.
Two tour card holders, and only one would make it through.
Their quarter-final was action-packed.
The racing went back and forth,
with both teams desperate to make it through to the semi-finals.
In flight four,
Mersky had a good start that eventually won him the race,
despite losing a crew member overboard just off the start line.
I'm the spinnaker Khalid and the jib Khalid with the same colour,
and I've been using the jib Khalid to hike on the whole week,
and I've racked the spinnaker Khalid
around my hiking cannon around the drum,
so I went to pull that.
I was going to get my legs out,
but obviously the hike went up and I went in.
We've had a lot on with Tids this week,
and he's probably going to hate me for saying that,
but it's been so much fun just having a new challenge,
and Tids is not usually our bowman.
Luckily he held on to the boat,
and it didn't cost us that much,
but he picked himself up at the back of the boat.
So it was down to a fifth decisive race.
We join Andy Green to see who would be going home.
Tied at 2-2, Murski and Rishad.
Very tight off the starting line.
Rishad getting the right-hand side,
but Murski winning the sometimes favoured left-hand side.
Certainly the skipper seems to be looking for this left-hand side.
That's where the first shift tends to come from.
Rishad tacked back,
but followers of the World Match Racing Tour will know.
Mathieu Rishad's absolute expertise.
And also we'll know about Murski's super skills.
His young techer, he is doing great stuff.
Look at that, Murski gets that left-hand shift
on the left-hand side,
and his three boat lengths ahead of Rishad.
Towards the downwind mark,
and those streaks of pressure coming down the lake here in Samarit.
And Rishad stealing Murski's wind, it looks like.
Murski a bad jibe, douses to Spinnaker.
Is Rishad going to get inside? Murski doesn't think so.
This is all about the overlap at the bottom mark.
Well, Murski does the right thing.
It looks like he's going to give him room.
Gives him room, and now puts up the white flag very firmly.
But Rishad is ahead, remember.
What do the umpires think?
Rishad cops a penalty, and it'll probably be read.
Because there was a change of control, there we go.
Rishad went from behind to ahead,
so the umpire says instead of off-setting the penalty
or allowing to do it later,
Rishad has to do it immediately.
There he goes, penalty done.
Look at Murski, great lead.
Having said that, we've seen these sorts of leads disappear pretty quickly.
But not this time.
Murski, jibing down towards the finishing line.
Murski takes it, 3-2.
Great race.
Matty is a really tough competitor.
He's very experienced, he's been number one in the world.
We just knew that this was going to be probably the toughest quarter-final match out there.
For us to take him down is a really good sign, moving forwards.
This is very disappointing indeed,
because I felt that we've sailed very well during these quarters,
and at the end we lost, so that's frustrating for sure.
When we have a call, which for us is obviously wrong or unfair,
for sure I'm frustrated, but I always keep in mind that during a season,
you can have calls against you, but also calls in your favour.
So I try not to spend too much energy about it.
Obviously after a bad result here, we have no ambition about the team,
and we are too far away from the leaders.
So the quarter-finals said goodbye to three out of four Tour Card holders,
which meant that joining Ian Williams in the semi-finals
was Pierre-Antoine Morvan, Bjorn Hansen and Torvar Mursky.
Join us after the break to see if any of them could send Ian Williams home.
Come on now!
The penultimate day of the San Maritz match race
saw many of the big names crash and burn.
Ian Williams and Torvar Mursky were the only Tour Card holders
to make it through to the semi-finals,
where they were joined by Bjorn Hansen and Pierre-Antoine Morvan.
As the leader of the qualifying stage,
Ian Williams had first pick of opponent, and he selected Morvan.
Having knocked out some strong contenders already,
Morvan looked like he could be the dark horse of the competition.
Ian Williams sat out during the quarter-finals,
so this was his first race of the day,
and he needed to be on form to match Morvan's strong performance.
We joined them for their race.
It's the pre-start conditions, light but very puffy.
The streaks of breeze on the water are what the teams are looking for.
William's early-doors copse a penalty.
Morvan really giving.
William's a run for his money.
It's kind of in trouble here at the windward end of the line.
He's got to get underneath Morvan.
Time! Come on!
Just manages it, but Morvan definitely gets to better at the start.
William's got a penalty against him.
We're going to have to roll away at some point.
Here we go.
Morvan sailing cool and calm, just drinking away from Williams.
Williams seemed slightly nervous in this semi-final.
Remember, it was Williams who picked Morvan.
Big lead coming towards the finish of the first race.
Nice confidence booster.
Ian Williams suffered his first major loss
and went into his second race desperate to prove himself.
It was a real battle with both boats over early in the pre-starts.
It looks like both boats are over and Morvan is going to cop a penalty.
Over the line, fouled Williams, possibly even hitting the pin end of the line.
So a really bad start for Morvan. Terrible.
Oh, he's got another penalty. He's got two penalties now.
So Morvan's going to have to tack away a complete one penalty.
This will give Williams a very comfortable lead.
Two penalties against Morvan.
Totally messed that start up.
There goes the first one. He's allowed to wait for the second one.
So now the race is on. Morvan has got to try and catch Williams up.
And boy, has he done that!
Williams trying to jam his way into the bottom mark.
Morvan looked like he was on starboard.
Don't think this is good news for Williams.
And boy, what a comeback.
Oh, Williams cops a penalty and it's immediate penalty.
He's got to take it straight away.
Williams looking at the umpires. What is going on?
Oh, Williams, furious. It's all falling apart.
Despite two penalties, Morvan manages to secure yet another win.
The third race saw no improvement from Williams,
and he went on to lose his third race in a row.
An incredible performance from Morvan and a shocking dip in form
for the team who looked unbeatable since the Porta Mão Portugal match cup.
But Williams still had a chance to overtake Francesco Bruni on the tour leaderboard
if he could take a third in the petty final.
Oh, it was a frustrating afternoon for us.
I think the boat just felt like it was stuck to the water today.
You know, whenever we looked, Pierre Antoine just seemed to have more wind
and be going faster.
It's just amazing. We came here to go in semi-final.
So now we are in final. It's only bonus for us.
You know, maybe not having the quarter-finals this morning
might have potentially hurt us a little bit.
I don't think so, though. We'll learn from this.
We'll, you know, we'll try and improve. And if we, you know,
we still got a chance of going top if we can get third place tomorrow.
To fight for the remaining spot in the finals,
Torval Merski came up against Bjorn Hansen.
Hansen won the first race and it was up to Merski to level the scores.
Torval Merski, Bjorn Hansen.
This will be a good dust-up for sure.
Very close already. Merski flagging vigorously.
That looks like Karl Langford. Merski's tactician doing the flagging.
What have the umpires got to say?
Oh, it looks like it. It's a penalty against Merski.
And Merski starts right on the pin end of the line.
And is he going to be able to cross Hansen's very unusual start?
But Merski really got the best of that.
Merski clean ahead. He is off.
Merski led all the way to the second upwind,
where he offloaded his penalty. And Hansen took the lead.
Umpires take the blue flag off.
And as they get to the top mark, Hansen has just taken the advantage
because Merski had to do that penalty. Final downwind.
Not a bad set from Merski. Better set than Hansen.
Hansen still hasn't got his spinnaker pole on properly.
Big shift to the right-hand side.
Merski got a nice puff of it.
The real advantage here in Samaritza being the boat behind
is that you can get the puffs and decide when to jive and look at that.
Merski squeezes around Hansen towards the finish. What a race.
Merski just got a little puff of breeze on the downwind
to take the race from Hansen.
Merski went on to win his next two races,
putting him through to the finals for the first time this year.
The first final for 2011 and couldn't be happier about it.
We've been quite consistent, always making it through the knockout
or getting to the knockout stages.
But the final we haven't made since Monson Cup last year.
Plenty of second places to our record and now hoping to change that.
Torber and his team, they are really, really good.
We talked about that before this season that our goal is to
get our crew to work up to their standards
because we think that they are sailing the boats best in the world
around the different types of boats.
Yeah, it was four really tough matches.
Unfortunately, we just won one of them.
But we just sat down and said that we're pretty happy the way we sailed.
The last day of the Samaritza match race dawned with no wind.
The two finalists, Pierre Antoine Morvan and Torvar Mursky,
waited patiently for racing to get underway
to see who would be crowned King of the Mountain.
With just as much at stake,
Ian Williams waited to race his petty final against Bjorn Hansen.
Last day in the Samaritza match race,
we're in the third-fourth playoff against Bjorn Hansen.
If we win and beat Ian, we're more than three points closer to the top of the board.
When we get to Malaysia in a couple of months' time,
I think those extra three points would be well worth having,
so we'll be going out and certainly doing our best to try and get third place.
So the teams were poised for action.
But due to lack of wind, racing was abandoned for the day
and Torvar Mursky was declared King of the Mountain.
Just so happy to do it with these guys.
We've got a great team and we've had a bit of a rollercoaster ride with my career recently
and just to get out there and show everyone that we're sailing well, we're a good team
and this is a great thing to do and just so happy about our result here.
Kinley had his mum and sister here.
We've got some friends over from Sweden who are part of our fan club
and of course there's quite a few people here in Samaritza cheer for us.
So it feels really special to do it here and it's just a really good feeling.
It's only our second win on the tour.
Our first one was like three years ago.
We've come second in many finals, I don't know, four or something like that.
So this feels like we've broken a spell now
and we hope that after a bit of turmoil and a rollercoaster ride with our careers
that we keep continuing on this winning streak.
When I come back to working with Graham
I'm going to have much more appreciation for the work he does.
I'm going to be a much more useful tool for him and staying in the boat.
I kind of feel a little bit bad for Graham though missing out on this one.
It's the first one we've won in a while so he's got to be feeling pretty bad.
It's not a job or not.
Yeah, it's amazing.
Finally we won something so it's been two years
and it's just a big relief that we finally broke the curse
and are ready to get back into it from the Muirter in Malaysia.
In second place, Pierre Antoine Morvan stood proudly above the tour card holders.
We are very happy to finish second at this event.
If you save me before the event, we'll be second.
I can't imagine that so we are very happy.
Ian Williams won his petty final against Bjorn Hansen on count back,
putting him in third position at the San Maritz match race
and at the top of the overall tour leaderboard.
Happy, sad, I don't know.
I guess we'll go away and be reasonably satisfied that we've made four podiums in a row now.
We've had two firsts and two thirds
and it puts us in a good position on the tour for sure.
So at the end of the San Maritz match race with Torvar Mursky first,
Ian Williams third and Francesco Bruni in eighth place,
there was a reshuffle of the world tour standings.
There's still only a few points separating the tour leaders
and with two more events left on the series, it's still anyone's game.
Join us in Permuda for the Argo Group Gold Cup
to see who can clinch those valuable ISAF World Match Racing Tour points.
The Argo Group Gold Cup
The Argo Group Gold Cup
The Argo Group Gold Cup
The Argo Group Gold Cup
The Argo Group Gold Cup
The Argo Group Gold Cup
