 Photo: Ian Roman/WMRT IslandStats.com
It was moving day at the 73rd Bermuda Gold Cup with New Zealand’s Nick Egnot-Johnson and his Knots Racing team thrusting themselves into contention for the semi-finals after posting three wins. After what by his own admission was a disappointing couple of days, Egnot-Johnson reversed his fortunes with victories over Ian Garreta/FRA, Chris Poole/USA and Peter Wickwire/CAN. “We had a really tough first couple of days and were really struggling to get used to the boats as we don’t have anything like this back home,” he said. “There has been a lot of calibration over the past few days but today it feels like it finally started to click and we’re now pretty happy with how we’re sailing going into the final day of round robins. We just need to be getting the starts right now.”
While Egnot-Johnson will be sailing for a spot in the semi-finals tomorrow, for one man the pressure is off after another perfect day in Hamilton Harbour. For the second day running, defending Gold Cup champion Johnie Berntsson from Sweden was the only skipper to remain unbeaten, with his nine victories across three days making his crew the first to book their place in the semi-finals with three races to go.
“The first goal at this regatta is to make it to the semi-finals and against such strong opponents you can never be sure how it will go,” he said. “It’s good news for us and we will see if we can try to stay on top of the scorecard.”
Swedish skippers Anna Östling (Wings Sailing) and Martina Carlsson (Beyond Racing) stole the show on day three of the Aspen Bermuda Women’s Match Race regatta with Östling continuing her assault on the top of the leaderboard winning three of her four races, including an important victory over France’s Pauline Courtois, while Carlsson picked up her first win of the regatta after a tough opening two days.
Everything on day three built towards the Östling-Courtois clash, the last race in the final flight, and the Swedish skipper was on the back foot early after being hit with a penalty in pre-start, which infuriated her. “We got the penalty early in the pre-start because we were off time going into the zone – that was on me and should not have happened,” Östling said. “But we made a good start and picked the right shifts and gained around the bottom mark. The girls on board are constantly working on the speed and that is something you can’t relax about. We need to work on our starts, but we are looking forward to tomorrow.”
Östling’s compatriot Carlsson cut a dejected figure after two days without a win, but her smile lit up an already sunny Hamilton Harbour when she returned to the dock after three wins, including one over her more experienced countrywoman. “We managed to make some good starts and to win feels amazing,” she said. “We had some great teamwork and everything felt better – we had some good chats last night and a lot of well wishes from home. We now have three races left and are looking forward to it and ready to go all in.”
While Östling and Courtois cemented their positions at the top of the standings on nine and eight points respectively, the race for the last two semi-final spots is heating up.
America’s Nicole Breault has move into third on seven points, with Denmark’s Lea Vogelius fourth on six points. Dutch skipper Julia Aartsen and her Team Out of the Box are still in the mix on five points with three races remaining.
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