Navy Pier
Chicago, IL- Under sunny skies but extremely shifty conditions at Chicago's world-famous
Navy Pier, the teams exhibiting the most patience and tenacity prevailed at the
Chicago Match Race Center's June Grade 2 Invitational presented by Eurex. The best
amongst them was 23-year old Taylor Canfield from the US Virgin Islands, and his
team of Matt Clark, Dan Morris and Tommy Loughborough.
Canfield had already received the principal prize in the event, an invitation to
next month's Chicago Match Cup, through qualifying from last year's Chicago Match
Cup. So the invitation for the only US stop on the Alpari World Match Racing Tour
then extends to runner-up Jordan Reece from Australia. Dates for this Grade WC event
are July 11-15th.
The road to the Finals was today was tough not only for the teams, but also the
race managers, who struggled throughout the day to keep the courses square in the
face of 40 degrees shifts that made no lead safe all day. But Canfield somehow made
it look easy by winning all his matches today, starting off with two earned in the
morning's Quarter Finals that dispenses Krzysztof Rosinski in a come-from-behind
effort to go 3-2. In the Semi-Finals Canfield then went 3-0 against Floridian Laser
sailor Brad Funk, before dominating 2-0 in the Finals with Reece.
Perhaps the best action of the event came not in the Finals, but in the last Petit-Final
match between Funk and US Olympian Sally Barkow. Tied onone point each, and just
yards away from the spectator crowd at the end of Navy Pier, the following drama
unfolded: Barkow led the match, but with an outstanding penalty and not enough lead
to do a turn at the finish and still stay ahead. Taking a play out of her Olympic
training book, she started to set a trap for Funk by slowing down to lure the Laser
sailor to windward where she could hope to throw him a luff and a penalty to even
the score.
But Funk instead rolled over the top of Barkow in the light air, and approaching
the end of the Pier looked safe to head to the finish. But Barkow and team hung
in there, staying close enough to Funk that he could not gybe, but not getting
overlapped to trigger a proper course requirement to gybe away towards the finish.
The two sat with lifeless spinnakers well past the layline to the pin end of the
finish, and right in front of the crowd.
Then the action started: Barkow judged she had enough room now to do her penalty
turn, so up went her jib, followed by a spinnaker drop and a tack to complete her
penalty turn. But meanwhile Funk gybed towards the finish in the diminishing breeze,
with the crowd cheering him on. Barkow gybed at him on starboard, saw he would pass
ahead, then gybed pack to port, giving Funk just enough separation to get ahead.
But the light air meant another gybe was needed to the finish line, even though
Funk was now extending his one length lead and looked comfortable to take the win
by that margin or more.
Then all of a sudden a "helicopter" puff of wind dropped down on both teams, hitting
Barkow first and propelling her forward just the few yards needed to allow her to
just get to the finish line with Funk in hot pursuit. The crowd roared as the yellow
flag went up at the signal boat, signaling the hard-fought win for Barkow. In all,
there were a staggering 8 lead changes in this one match.
This kind of action and more can be found on the daily highlight videos posted at
www.chicagomatchrace.com
Final Results:
1. Taylor Canfield (ISV)
2. Jordan Reece (AUS)
3. Sally Barkow (USA)
4. Brad Funk (USA)
5. Dustin Durant (USA)
6. Don Wilson (USA)
7. Krzysztof Rosinski (POL)
8. Steve Lowery (USA)
9. Mike Quaglio (USA)
10. Magnus Sandberg (SWE)
