In May this year the World Match Race Tour (WMRT) officially launched the first official Women’s World Match Racing Tour, as a legacy to the series run by the Women’s International March Racing Association (WIMRA), bringing the men’s and the women’s match race tour under the same organisation, with an aim to help promote and grow female participation in sailing and match racing around the world.
Five By Five Match Race Team
Ali Morrish, originally from St Mary’s Sailing club in the Borders, shared her ambition of getting involved in the Women’s tour and brought together a group of talented female sailors, including several Scots including Emily Roberston of Royal Forth YC and Rebecca Coles of Annandale SC, to form the Five By Five Match Race team, with Sarah Jarman from Lymington YC on bow and former British Sailing Team 49er FX sailor, Anna Carpenter, trimming.
We caught up with Emily Robertson on her return from the Women’s Match Racing Worlds in NZ, the final event new World Tour. Both Emily and Ali had originally met through various team racing events as helms, so when Ali had suggested getting a match race team together it seemed a great idea.
“We definitely prefer the team aspect of sailing, where racing can be so much better as we can draw on each other’s strengths around the boat and having a real shared experience. On the flip side it does require more logistics and finding people for each event.”
“Now that we had a core group as a functioning team it has been easier to change members sometimes for different events. The consistency in having Ali driving, myself on the main and Sarah on the bow has made crew transitions faster, with much better communications. We are so lucky to have Sarah on the bow and Anna trimming, because if you do not know what’s going on in a match race it is very hard to make the boat work efficiently and manoeuvre quickly.”
Match racing is a one-on-one race in matching keelboats, with slightly different rules than fleet racing and team racing. A bit like chess on the water and is the main format for prestigious trophies like the Americas Cup, the worlds oldest sporting trophy.
“The WMRT team are really invested in getting the best out of the events and the teams and have been extremely supportive. For us it is the first time forming at team and then finding sponsors to help fund our ambition, which has been challenge for Ali and I as we have never asked for funding for our sailing. This feels very different and professional, so we feel lucky to have experience in our working lives around managing projects and logistics.”
“When we first started match racing there was not much going on, however getting together as a team created additional motivation that motivates others. We now have four competitive British women’s teams really pushing it which guarantees some good racing at all events that we have attended this year.”
“One of the single most powerful motivating points for us was a coaching weekend with Kate McGregor, supported by the RYA, with free use of the Elliot 5.9’s at WPNSA. It was invaluable in practicing various match race manoeuvres within a more social community of sailors which really created a spark. We all felt that qualifiers or formal events meant you didn’t have the same amount of time of the water learning, it was more win or lose, with little time to reflect. Having a fleet of matched boats and a group of people willing to want to use them really has opened many doors for us.”
The Women’s Match Race Tour this year saw the Five By Five team debut at the Kongilig Dansk Yachtklub in September, to race matched DS37’s, much larger boats than the team were used to. Despite this new boat the team managed a 5th from the 12 teams at their first event in the series.
Next up the team travelled to Corfu for the Women’s European Match Racing Championships, which enabled the teams to sail another type of boat, the Platu 25, a more familiar scale of boat, but the Greek wind gods shut the event off early as the quarter and semi-finals were cancelled, leaving the team 8th after having only sailed the round robin series.
The team then returned to the RYA National Match Racing Grand Finals in RS21’s, where they placed 5th overall and 1st female helm & team, setting them up for the Worlds in New Zealand in November.
The World Championships were held in November at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS), in their Elliott 7m class keelboats. With asymmetric sails and different course configurations to suit the tide, the Five by Five team again adapted accordingly and got to grips with racing Waitemata harbour.
The Royal Forth Yacht Club posted a more detailed account of the teams progress on their website and while the racing was very close the competition from the international teams was very strong with Pauline Courtois and her Match in Pink team from France defending their world title and champions of the inaugural 2022 Women’s Match Race Tour.
The Five by Five team finished as top British boat in the World’s fleet and took a lot of lessons and inspiration from the event, summarised in, “That’s sailing – exciting, fun, and at times unpredictable and brutally punishing.”
On reflection Emily Robertson notes, “We are very proud of what we have managed in forming a team and getting to the worlds this season. We have now got supporters, logos and kit, so we are excited about the future and looking forward to the 2023 season.”
We wish Five By Five every success on their Match Racing journey and you can follow them @fivebyfivematch in Instagram.
The Winter Women’s Match Racing Championship will take place on the 19th and 20th of March at WPNSA that will effectively be the rescheduled 2022 UK Championships.
Entries are also invited for the RYA and BUSA Women’s Team Racing Championships taking place at Rutland Sailing Club over the weekend of 7-8 January 2023 – teams can represent their club, locale or university.
