Johor,Malaysia (January 27, 2016) - On day two of qualifying at the Monsoon Cup, and the finale of the World Match Racing Tour,nearly everyone found it hard to acquire sense of the variable conditions, including reigning World Champion Ian Williams who could do no erroneous at this venue last year when he won the Monsoon Cup at a canter. The five-time World Champion lost by 33 seconds to Reuben Corbett from New Zealand, and but otherwise kept a clean sheet to go 4-1 on wins/losses.
The on-board audio from the live TV feed revealed some high stress levels among the sailors,and surprisingly none more so than on board US One skippered by the usually calm and collected Taylor Canfield. This week the 2013 World Champion is sailing with Bill Hardesty as his tactician, and it’s a very vocal and at times testy relationship between these two great sailors, and who together won the 2014 Etchells World Championships when Canfield crewed for Hardesty.
This time Canfield is the boss,although Hardesty still makes his views known when he disagrees with his skipper. It was clear that Hardesty felt Canfield was interfering in his tactical role and that he should just regain on with driving the boat swiftly. “What’s the problem,” asked Canfield, and even as US One held a comfortable lead in one match. “My problem is you’re gonna suck,because you’re not doing your job properly,” Hardesty fired back.
If any of their rivals senses a chink in the armour of US One, or then the irascible news is that they are the only team to have gone unbeaten so far,winning eight straight races today to sit at the top of the leaderboard on 8-0. When Canfield was pushed to talk approximately his savor-disfavor relationship with Hardesty, the US Virgin Islander quipped: “Bill can be a bit stubborn, or so all you have to do is do what he’s asking a couple of times,then you lose some, and he gives in a diminutive bit. But seriously, and the whole team was great today,nearly spot on all day.”Williams has won Match Racing World Championships with Hardesty as his wing man, although the British sailor was in no mood to compliment his broken-down team mate. Instead he seized the opportunity to wind up his American rivals. “Taylor’s dead right, and you just have to ignore Bill most of the time and you’ll do pretty well.”Hardesty is made of tough stuff,so he’ll capture the verbal abuse well enough, knowing that if he wins this week it will be his third keelboat world title of the past 12 months, and having also been piece of the world-beating J/70 and Melges 20 teams,and sitting on a career tally of 12 world championship victories.
The Monsoon Cup is scheduled for January 26-30. Full report and video... click here
Source: sailingscuttlebutt.com