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Permalink to Black Swan Racing 3rd in Estonia

Black Swan Racing 3rd in Estonia

by Keith|on June 22, 2011 |in News

Over the weekend we competed in the Parnu Sailing Week grade 2 event in Parnu, Estonia. Although situated on the Baltic Sea our race area was in the confined Parnu Harbour, making conditions extremely difficult. Our aim at the event was to sail more as a team in a four man boat as preparation for the grade 1 events later in the year.

We breezed through the round robin stage with a score of 7-2. Conditions during the round robin were fantastic with 8-15 knot westerly winds, making sailing in the harbour more manageable.

We drew William Tiller from New Zealand in the semi-final. Conditions had changed dramatically from the previous two days with the wind now off the land from the east at 3-8 knots. In the first race of the semi-final we won the start and lead to the top mark. We defended well on the downwind and took a two length lead into the 3rd leg. From here we sailed a little too defensive allowing Tiller to be closer to us on the rounding. We did a nice spinnaker hoist and setup well to defend our lead. Unfortunately we lost some ground on our next gybe maneuver loosing some speed in the very light conditions. This allowed Tiller to take our wind and sail past us to the finish.

In the second race we made a bad mistake in the start, allowing Tiller to take the favoured position. Despite looking good momentarily the wind was always going to shift back to favour the New Zealand team. This allowed them to sail a much easier race than we would ever like. This result was quite disappointing and we felt some difference in the speed of the boats which was also frustrating.

Of course we made sure we fought hard to secure 3rd position, defeating Henrik Haddad the Brazilian Champion 2-1 in the petite final.

“All in all it was an interesting event. We haven’t sailed in this type of conditions for a while so we relearnt many important points. It was a good event to outline some of the things we need to work on in the team so we can try and step it up a level at the upcoming grade 1 events. Now we start our preparations for Match Cup Sweden, including 3 days of training in the DS37 yacht in Oslo, Norway.” Keith Swinton Black Swan Racing.

Permalink to Black Swan Racing 3rd at GKSS Spring Cup

Black Swan Racing 3rd at GKSS Spring Cup

by Keith|on May 31, 2011 |in News

Over the weekend the team competed in the GKSS Spring Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden. This regatta was special in a few ways, firstly and most importantly is was the qualifying regatta for the prestigious Match Cup Sweden world tour event. Secondly, with some of the team being based in Gothenburg it felt in some ways like sailing at home, with that certain amount of local support. Lastly skipper Keith Swinton has been working at GKSS over the past year, coaching match racing so it was interesting sailing against some of his students.

The event consisted of 10 competitive teams sailing on the Ds37 match racing yachts. These boats are quite difficult to come to terms with as they are big heavy yachts, but are able to turn extremely tightly. We began the regatta sailing against defending champion and previous Match Cup Sweden winner, Mattias Rahm and his Stena Bulk Sailing Team. We sailed well in this race, gaining a penalty against Rahm and holding the lead to finish ahead. However things didn’t continue this smoothly, the wind continued to build to a steady 18-22 knots. Unfortunately we lost the next two races, struggling a little in the stronger breeze.

This put us under some pressure, but we came out on day 2 with a positive mindset and managed to put together five straight wins. Unfortunately time was running out and it became evident there would be no semi-final stage. This meant we had to win our final race to progress to a top two final. In this race we started well but we made a mistake up the first leg tacking to close to our opponent and being given a penalty. This made things difficult as we tried to extend enough to take the penalty and finish ahead. We completed our penalty turn on the finish line but in the end we didn’t quite have enough distance, loosing the race.

This left us stranded in 3rd position (6wins-3loss) after the round robin missing the final on count back.

“I am quite happy with our performance at Spring Cup. It was difficult to jump into these heavy 5 man boats after sailing the smaller Tom 28 four man boats in our last two events.

The strong wind during the event also made things very tough, especially with very limited training. It was disappointing that we didn’t get to sail the semi-final as we really started to sail to our potential by the end of the regatta. Hopefully we may still have some chance to participate in Match Cup Sweden anyway.” Keith Swinton, Helmsman, Black Swan Racing.

Next up we travel to Tallin, Estonia for a grade 2 event. We will use this event to gain ranking points and train for the grade 1 in Pornichet, France next month.

Permalink to Back Online

Back Online

by Keith|on May 27, 2011 |in News |tagged Black Swan Racing, New homepage |Leave a comment

Welcome to Black Swan Racing’s new web page. Over the coming weeks we will put the finishing touches on the site whilst trying to keep you all updated on our progress.

Black Swan Racing

Permalink to Black Swan 5th at Open De Spain

Black Swan 5th at Open De Spain

by Keith|on May 10, 2011 |in Uncategorized

Today was another tight day in Calpe. The breeze was up, with 10-20 knots from the north east. We had three races all of which were very important to help our chances of progressing to the semi-final. We started well with a come from behind win against fellow Australian Evan Walker and followed this up by defeating Steffan Lindberg.

In the final race against French veteran Bertrand Pace we took the start but Pace kept it close up the work. On the first run he managed to force us past the bottom mark but in doing so he was penalised by the umpires. Unfortunately from here Pace was able to extend, picking up a big wind shift on the left. He was then able to complete his penalty on the line and finish ahead. This left us stranded on 6 wins, 5 losses. From here we needed some results to go our way but it wasn’t to be, missing the semi-final on count back.

Although very disappointed we realise how close we were to making the top four in a very competitive grade 1 field. Every race of the regatta, we were always fighting for the win which is a very good sign for the team.

Keith Swinton

Olof Lundgren

Jakob Gustafsson

Ricky McGarvie

Permalink to Black Swan Racing Wins Sir Thomas Lipton Match Race

Black Swan Racing Wins Sir Thomas Lipton Match Race

by Keith|on April 3, 2011 |in News

A windless morning in Javea worked out well for us today. With only a small time frame allowed for the completion of the best of five race series, yesterdays 2-1 lead was going to be very important.

“It’s awesome to start off the year with a win, especially against some very tough opposition. It was a little bit of an anti-climax not racing today, but I think yesterday we knew there was a good chance this would be the situation. We were very determined to take the lead yesterday. Hopefully we can use this as a spring board into a successful season.” Keith Swinton, Helmsman Black Swan Racing.

Results top 4:

1. Keith Swinton, Black Swan Racing

2. Alvahro Marinho, Seth Sailing Team

3. Pierre Antoine Morvan, French Match Racing

4. Simone Ferrarese, Ferrarese Racing