Team Wibroe Show How Itâ??s Done

Recently crowned European Champions, Team Wibroe, took the ISAF Grade WC Danish Open by storm today.

With seven wins out of eight matches they easily lead the event in one of the strongest fields one could imagine.

A fine example of the superb sailing today was the duel between Peter WIBROE (DEN) and Ian WILLIAMS (GBR) of Team Pindar. In an exhibition of world class match racing WILLIAMS and WIBROE were at each others’ throats from the moment they entered the pre-start area. WILLIAMS engineered a penalty on to WIBROE during the pre-start duelling and they were evenly matched all the way to the top mark. WILLIAMS tried to drive WIBROE further off the top mark in search of another penalty, he gave up and tacked for the mark, whilst WIBROE took the opportunity to gybe round and shed the penalty before rounding the mark. A move that cost him practically no time at all. WIBROE then found a band of pressure on the far side of the course and sailed past WILLIAMS on the downwind leg. They continued this aggressive sailing until the final downwind leg by which time WIBROE had clearly got the better of WILLIAMS and took the win.

In another demonstration of Team Wibroe’s growing confidence was their pre-start duel with Staffan LINDBERG (FIN) of Alandia Sailing Team. The decisive moment came when both boats went head to wind at the pin end of the start line. LINDBERG was at the pin-end side, the gun went and they both sat waiting. WIBROE dropped the fore-sail and finally LINDBERG was forced to bear away, WIBROE followed and managed to squeeze over the line leaving LINDBERG to gybe round to make the start. After that there was no way back for LINDBERG and Team Wibroe took another scalp.

But the results may not do justice to the fantastic quality of match racing that the traditionally very knowledgeable crowd at the Danish Open have been treated to. Sten MOHR (DEN), recently back to the Tour from America’s cup duty with BMW ORACLE Racing (along with five other crews from the Americas Cup, which underlines Team Wibroe’s outstanding performance) gave a master class of his own. In flight 11, MOHR loaded his opponent Mathieu RICHARD (FRA) up with two penalties which soon turned into a black flag when RICHARD failed to start taking one of the penalties as soon as he could. ‘I wanted to take my penalty earlier but from my point of view it was not possible with all the other boats around us. Otherwise I have no complaints about the penalties, they were completely correct,’ says Frenchman RICHARD, ‘The current was not bad today, in fact the conditions were perfect. We are still after a place in the semi final and with the tough competition, four wins out of seven still make it very realistic possibility.’

RICHARD’s point is a good one, apart from Team Wibroe (and unfortunately Team Viltoft with no wins on the board) all the other teams seem to be evenly matched; tomorrows matches are really going to be worth watching as the crews fight for a semi final berth.

Racing is planned to resume at 09:15 tomorrow, instead of the scheduled 10:00, in order to make up for lost time due to the conditions encountered so far.

The racing can be followed live on the internet courtesy of the onboard tracking systems at www.tractrac.com/danishopen.

ISAF Match Racing World Championship Standings
(After Stage 9)

World Match Racing Tour Schedule
(2006-2007 Season)

The World Match Racing Tour is an ISAF Special Event. Skippers earn points towards the World Championship at the nine events of the World Tour and the highest scoring skipper at the end of the season is the ISAF Match Racing World Champion.

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