Qatar Match Race Round Up
A successful start to the season continued for Zoke Kiwi Match with a regatta win in Qatar, following our Nation’s Cup Qualifier victory. The Doha Sailing Club were excellent hosts and ran a brilliant regatta for the 14 teams that competed in the Qatar Match Race. The facilities provided both on and off the water were great, the boats were well set up and evenly matched, and apart from day 1, even the weather played along.
The teams were split into 2 groups for the first stage of competition based on skipper’s rankings. Each group completed a single round robin with the top 4 teams from each group progressing to a top 8 round robin. From there the top 4 teams progressed onto the semifinals and finals stage of the regatta. Although this meant an early exit for a lot of teams, it meant a full programme of racing was able to be completed within the allotted 4 days of sailing.
Learning from past mistakes we wanted to arrive in Qatar early to acclimatise to the local conditions, get over jet lag and have an opportunity to do some additional training on the boats before racing got underway. This ultimately proved successful and is hopefully a formula we will be able to repeat in the future as we felt we were up to speed right from our first race. We easily qualified for the top 8 round winning all our races in the group stage of competition and qualified for the semifinals after only losing one race in the top 8 round. The other skippers to make the semifinals were Andrei Arbuzov from Russia, Olli-Pekka Lumijarvi from Finland and Zahid Rauf from Pakistan.
We were paired with Ollie-Pekka in our semifinal race which we again won comfortably 2-0; however it wasn’t so clear cut in the other semi, needing all 3 races to decide a winner, with Andrei Arbozov eventually proving too strong for the young Pakistan team. The finals produced some great battles in perfect 8 – 10 knots of breeze. The racing was really tight but we were able to sail slightly smoother and faster to eventually clinch the title 3-1.
We are really happy with how we performed in this regatta, only losing 2 races during the whole event. It definitely puts us on the right track and boosts our confidence as we look ahead. The team re-groups next in Hong Kong for a short training camp before we head to Korea for our next event; the Korea Match Cup Qualifier. Thanks again to friends and family for all their support and be sure to keep an eye on our website for more updates.
Final Results
1 Laurie Jury (NZL)
2 Andrei Arbuzov (RUS)
3 Olli-Pekka Lumijärvi (FIN)
4 Zahid Rauf (PAK)
5 Petr Kochnev (RUS)
6 Sergey Musikhin (RUS)
7 Ebrahim Abdullah (BRN)
8 Ayaz Shaikh (IND)
9 Mati Sepp (EST)
10 Atool Sinha (IND)
11 Morten Jakobsen (THA)
12 Trunal Helgaonkar (IND)
13 Waleed Al Sharshani (QAT)
14 Taramati Matiwade (IND)
The teams were split into 2 groups for the first stage of competition based on skipper’s rankings. Each group completed a single round robin with the top 4 teams from each group progressing to a top 8 round robin. From there the top 4 teams progressed onto the semifinals and finals stage of the regatta. Although this meant an early exit for a lot of teams, it meant a full programme of racing was able to be completed within the allotted 4 days of sailing.
Learning from past mistakes we wanted to arrive in Qatar early to acclimatise to the local conditions, get over jet lag and have an opportunity to do some additional training on the boats before racing got underway. This ultimately proved successful and is hopefully a formula we will be able to repeat in the future as we felt we were up to speed right from our first race. We easily qualified for the top 8 round winning all our races in the group stage of competition and qualified for the semifinals after only losing one race in the top 8 round. The other skippers to make the semifinals were Andrei Arbuzov from Russia, Olli-Pekka Lumijarvi from Finland and Zahid Rauf from Pakistan.
We were paired with Ollie-Pekka in our semifinal race which we again won comfortably 2-0; however it wasn’t so clear cut in the other semi, needing all 3 races to decide a winner, with Andrei Arbozov eventually proving too strong for the young Pakistan team. The finals produced some great battles in perfect 8 – 10 knots of breeze. The racing was really tight but we were able to sail slightly smoother and faster to eventually clinch the title 3-1.
We are really happy with how we performed in this regatta, only losing 2 races during the whole event. It definitely puts us on the right track and boosts our confidence as we look ahead. The team re-groups next in Hong Kong for a short training camp before we head to Korea for our next event; the Korea Match Cup Qualifier. Thanks again to friends and family for all their support and be sure to keep an eye on our website for more updates.
Final Results
1 Laurie Jury (NZL)
2 Andrei Arbuzov (RUS)
3 Olli-Pekka Lumijärvi (FIN)
4 Zahid Rauf (PAK)
5 Petr Kochnev (RUS)
6 Sergey Musikhin (RUS)
7 Ebrahim Abdullah (BRN)
8 Ayaz Shaikh (IND)
9 Mati Sepp (EST)
10 Atool Sinha (IND)
11 Morten Jakobsen (THA)
12 Trunal Helgaonkar (IND)
13 Waleed Al Sharshani (QAT)
14 Taramati Matiwade (IND)
Qatar Match Race Finals
Skipper Laurie Jury and his team from New Zealand proved their skills to Win the ISAF GRADE 2 Qatar Match Racing Cup 2011 against skipper Andrei Arbuzov and his team from Russia by 3 - 1 of best of 5 match finals. For 3rd & 4th place skipper Olli-Pekka Lumijirvi and his team from Finland beat skipper Zahid Rauf and his team from Pakistan by 2 - 0 of best of 3 finals.
Mr. Ali Nasser Telfat, Secretary General, Qatar Sailing & Rowing thanked Qatar Olympic Committee for their support in organizing this event, the Skippers & their teams, Technical Officials, Race Committee, Organizers and Press/Media. He hoped to welcome all teams again next year. Later he gave away Trophies and cash prizes among the winners.
-Courtesy of Qatar Sailing and Rowing Federation
Mr. Ali Nasser Telfat, Secretary General, Qatar Sailing & Rowing thanked Qatar Olympic Committee for their support in organizing this event, the Skippers & their teams, Technical Officials, Race Committee, Organizers and Press/Media. He hoped to welcome all teams again next year. Later he gave away Trophies and cash prizes among the winners.
-Courtesy of Qatar Sailing and Rowing Federation
Qatar Match Race - Preview
The 2011 season is finally starting to get underway for Zoke Kiwi Match as we make our way to Qatar for our first international event of the year. The team arrive in Qatar on the back of a successful Nations Cup Qualifying regatta held in Auckland, New Zealand which we won convincingly, only losing one race over the course of the entire weekend. The Nations Cup win see’s us qualify to represent New Zealand in the Asia Pacific Champs to be held in Sydney next month. It also worked well as an ideal training regatta and springboard to launch into our first international regatta as we head into unknown territory in Doha, Qatar.
Run out of the Doha Sailing Club, the Grade 2 Qatar Match Race Regatta has managed to attract a large field of 15 teams from no less than 9 different countries. This is an excellent sign that an up and coming sailing nation is able to attract such a diverse field of teams in only its second year of hosting this event. The event runs from 6th - 10th April with the intended format being a single round robin, semi finals and finals. This is a rather cut throat programme; with 11 teams being culled after only a single round robin we will need to hit the ground running as a slow start here could be very costly indeed.
The event is to be sailed in the French design and built Beneteau First Class 7.5 one design boats. It was designed in 1982 by the highly regarded French Design team Groupe Finot with insight from the French Sailing Federation and has more than 1000 boats sailing worldwide. The first Class 7.5 looks to be a modern, versatile and high performance boat with a high aspect rig and a large, open and ergonomically designed cockpit so should be plenty of fun to sail.
We hope to get a day or two training on the boats and out on the race course before the event starts on Wednesday which will help us to adapt to the local conditions. This is our first venture to the Middle East so we will have to acclimatize to the 30 plus degree dry heat and dusty weather quickly. We will try and update results as often as possible on our website as well as uploading photos and video as the week progresses. Thanks again to our sponsor Zoke for making this all possible and to all our friends and family for their continued support.
Run out of the Doha Sailing Club, the Grade 2 Qatar Match Race Regatta has managed to attract a large field of 15 teams from no less than 9 different countries. This is an excellent sign that an up and coming sailing nation is able to attract such a diverse field of teams in only its second year of hosting this event. The event runs from 6th - 10th April with the intended format being a single round robin, semi finals and finals. This is a rather cut throat programme; with 11 teams being culled after only a single round robin we will need to hit the ground running as a slow start here could be very costly indeed.
The event is to be sailed in the French design and built Beneteau First Class 7.5 one design boats. It was designed in 1982 by the highly regarded French Design team Groupe Finot with insight from the French Sailing Federation and has more than 1000 boats sailing worldwide. The first Class 7.5 looks to be a modern, versatile and high performance boat with a high aspect rig and a large, open and ergonomically designed cockpit so should be plenty of fun to sail.
We hope to get a day or two training on the boats and out on the race course before the event starts on Wednesday which will help us to adapt to the local conditions. This is our first venture to the Middle East so we will have to acclimatize to the 30 plus degree dry heat and dusty weather quickly. We will try and update results as often as possible on our website as well as uploading photos and video as the week progresses. Thanks again to our sponsor Zoke for making this all possible and to all our friends and family for their continued support.
