World Match Racing Tour Shenzhen Bao'an Final 2024 - Day 1
by WMRT 10 Dec 15:44 UTC
10-15 December 2024
World Match Racing Tour Shenzhen Bao'an Final - Day 1 © Ian Roman / WMRT
The 2024 World Match Racing Tour Shenzhen Bao'an Final is under way. The event began with an opening ceremony attended by skippers, teams, organizing authorities, and spectators.
Despite a slight delay in the morning due to forecasted light breezes, Principal Race Officer Randy Smith successfully ran six flights of the round-robin on the opening day.
Currently, Chris Poole (USA), Nick Egnot-Johnson (NZL), and Cole Tapper (AUS) are tied at the top of the leaderboard, each securing four wins in the early stages of the round-robin series.
Teams came out swinging with some incredibly close racing from the get-go. Teams that could navigate the light morning shifty conditions set themselves up for success. By the afternoon, the building breeze offered slightly more stability.
Cole Tapper, recently crowned Youth Match Racing World Champion, is carrying forward his strong form. His coach for the Youth Worlds, Jordan Reece, joins him as crew for this event, while his main trimmer from last week is sailing with the Kiwi team, KNOTS Racing.
"I'm sailing with a different crew this week, including our coach Jordan Reece, who keeps us in line and does a great job calling the shifts," commented Tapper on his strong first day. "Often you'd be winning and not feel good at all because it was shifting all over the place, but we paid a lot of attention to the other races and we figured it out the best we could."
New Zealand's Nick Egnot-Johnson sits 4-2 after the opening day with his KNOTS Racing team.
"Our goal from today was to take each race as it comes and not be too upset if a shift didn't go our way," commented Nick Egnot-Johnson on the shifty conditions on the course. "Now, it's one race at a time from here."
Also carrying momentum from a recent success is Sweden's Johnie Berntsson. Coming off of his fourth Bermuda Gold Cup win, Berntsson and his crew had a strong start to the regatta this afternoon with a 3-0 going into tomorrow's racing.
Tomorrow, the round-robin will continue with racing scheduled to start at 1000 local time.