Williams claims fifth win at Dutch Match Cup

Lelystad, Netherlands (September 28, 2014) – Ian Williams and his GAC Pindar crew today continued their remarkable sequence of results by securing their fifth podium finish in a row in this season’s Alpari World Match Racing Tour (AWMRT), at the Dutch Match Cup.

Despite losing to Taylor Canfield (Team USone) in the final, Williams remains top of the leader board on 116 points. Canfield’s victory means he has closed the gap slightly on Williams, sitting in second place on 98 points.

Williams, who struggled slightly in qualifying as he got used to the boats and wind conditions in Lelystad qualified for the quarter finals in sixth position, setting up a quarter final tie against Phil Robertson of WAKA Racing.

After going 2-0 down to Robertson in the Quarter Final, Williams had to dig deep and utilise all of his match racing experience to make it to through. However, he quickly found his rhythm winning all three remaining races, to reach the Semi-Finals 3-2.

Williams took on Mathieu Richard of Lunajets in the Semi-Finals and again, didn’t get off to the ideal start narrowly losing the first leg. Williams was then able to take advantage of some good racing conditions to win the next three legs, to proceed to the final showdown with Canfield.

The final was a closely fought contest and could have gone either way, but Canfield ultimately came out on top, winning 2-0

Speaking after Sunday’s final, Williams commented: “Obviously we’re disappointed not to win but we’re still satisfied to have made our sixth straight final (including the Monsoon Cup last year). We will now be between 0 and 9 points ahead of Canfield come Malaysia, depending on how results go in Bermuda.”

The consistency of results throughout the tour from GAC Pindar and Williams will be crucial when it comes to the final standings, given that final points for the season are calculated by adding the best four results from the tour plus points scored in the final event of the tour, The Monsoon Cup.

The Alpari World Match Racing Tour returns next month in Bermuda for the Argo Group Gold Cup October 21st – 26th 2014.

To follow all the action from the World Match Racing Tour, please visit, www.wmrt.com.

Report by GAC Pindar
Photo credit Robert Hadjuk