News / Results Match Racing at the Gold Cup 
| Match Racing at the Gold Cup | | Print | |
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Hamilton, Bermuda Greetings from the island of Bermuda where I’m skippering an international team of five women competing in the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s 59th annual King Edward VII Gold Cup Regatta. Twentyone international match racing crews are sailing in this week’s regatta which marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the trophy. Starting today we are racing in the RBYC’s fleet of 33-foot International One-Designs. The event is also Stage 13 of the World Match Racing Tour. Debbie Capozzi from our regular Team 7 Sailing Yngling crew is sailing here with me. Debbie and I have been joined by Bermuda’s champion woman match racer Paula Lewin, top-ranked British Yngling sailor Annie Lush, and New Zealand’s number one Yngling skipper Sharon Ferris. Our sole women’s team is lining up against some pretty formidable competition including America’s Cup skippers Ed Baird (Alinghi), Magnus Holmberg (Victory Challenge) and Paolo Cian (Shosholoza), plus Team Pindar’s British skipper Ian Williams, currently the number-one ranked match racer in the world. Ian is also the reigning Gold Cup champion. With 21 teams and just six days to race, there’s a sudden death quality to this event. We’ll be breaking into three groups of seven. Each group will sail just a single round robin with the top two placers going on the quarter finals. The third and fourth placed teams will race in a repechage series that will send two more teams to the quarter finals. It’s a very unique event here in Hamilton. The long, narrow classic lines of the IOD’s make for very different performance characteristics than the Ynglings we’re accustomed to. And the sailing is conducted the length of the narrow inlet that forms Hamilton Harbor, putting a premium on boat handling. The racing is in full view of spectators on the foreshore and the grounds of the RBYC, and tourists on moored cruise ships. The King Edward VII Gold Cup is the oldest match racing trophy in the world for competition involving one-design yachts. It was first presented at the Tri-Centenary Regatta at Jamestown, Va., in 1907 by King Edward VII in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the first permanent settlement in America. In 1956 the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club placed the Cup in competition for match racing in yachts of the International One-Design Class. Bermudian skipper Bert Darrell had the honor of being the first to defend the Cup in this class and won it a total of six times. New Zealander Russell Coutts became the event’s all-time winner when he surpassed Darrell in 2004 with his seventh championship. We’ll be in touch again after the event is over, but you will find full daily results at RBYC Gold Cup. Remember, our Team 7 site is at http://www.team7sailing.com
Sally Barkow for Team Seven Sailing -
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