News Around the World
Netherlands skipper Niels Kamphuis approaches Antigua and the finish of the Globe 580 Transat. The winning time of Swiss skipper Renaud Stitelmann aboard Capucinette was 22d 5h 26m; which translates into an average over the 3,000nm direct course of 5.62kt with an average daily run of 135nm. Fifteen skippers qualified to line up in Antigua for the late-February start of the Mini Globe race around the world. As the blurb says, ‘you don’t need an Imoca to race around the world’. No, but you do need quite a lot of free time
thinking we had won – the photographer, Ian Roman, was literally giving us instructions as to how he wanted to take the victory shot, when we were informed that they needed to check for damage. ‘That went on for about 20 minutes, at the end of which the £100
worth of damage we had done was deemed sufficient to dock us three-quarters of a point, so now we needed to win another race. But within a minute or two at most, the team was now super-focused on the next race – I think the nature of our regatta had got us into that mindset of bouncing back when things went wrong. ‘But it was still incredibly shifty, so no lead was safe, and we
had already lost races after being well ahead. I just said we needed to win one more race, and that last race of the final (Race 6) was the best race we sailed.’ Remarkable stuff from a sailor who has been such an ever-present
force in the match racing discipline. His new record of eight world titles will be very hard to beat. ‘Winning for the eighth time is very different from the first. Of course there is still a big desire to secure the result, but I think you also learn to appreciate the whole experience a lot more.’ Then fast forward to January 2025 and Williams was at it again,
dominating the fleet in Macau on the first stop of the 2025 Tour. It’s remarkable consistency… and an ironclad but well-concealed ability to never admit that he’s beaten. For sure there will be Cup teams now planning for AC38 who will
have noted that match racing is recovering its significance as the AC75 performance gaps shrink. And Williams is more than ready for the call: ‘It has been interesting, to see the helms with extensive Match Racing Tour experience, like Ben Ainslie, Jimmy Spithill and Cecco Bruni versus the younger generation who have done less match racing. ‘As we go into Version 3 of the AC75 Rule the performance deltas
will come down further and the importance of strategic positioning will consequently go up. No doubt all the teams will be considering how best to up their match racing skills and it will be interesting to see how that develops. ‘Unfortunately, we do too few events to really get the pulse of who will be at the forefront of the next generation. For sure there
26 SEAHORSE
are a number of French teams who are clearly putting a lot of time in; if they end up driving each other forward I would expect at least one very strong French team to come out of it.’ Eight has a special resonance in China. Ian Williams winning
an eighth World Match Racing Championship was anything but luck. Then going again in Macau proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Ian Williams is the undisputed king of what is now his own game. Magnus Wheatley
NEW ZEALAND When Megan Thomson was growing up her father had to bribe her with treats and snacks to get her to go cruising on the family yacht. As soon as she discovered that sailing was a competitive sport, however, such enticements were no longer necessary. ‘Once racing came into the picture the competitive side of my personality kicked in and I got much more interested,’ says Thomson, back in New Zealand after skippering her 2.0 Sailing Team to second place in the 2024 Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Jeddah. Her result came just a week before fellow Kiwi Nick Egnot-Johnson
matched her runner-up result in his World Match Race Tour world title clash at the same venue against British ace Ian Williams. Their spirited final, which required six races to find the victor, earning Williams that title no8. Both Thomson and Egnot-Johnson came through the Royal New
Zealand Yacht Squadron’s Performance Programme. They are sailing contemporaries and close friends, whose paths have continually crossed in the course of their careers. ‘We have raced with and against each other in quite a number of events over the years,’ says Thomson. Once Thomson’s competitive instincts awakened she was soon
launched on an upward trajectory, spending much of her early teens racing Starling dinghies designed by the great Kiwi stylist Des Townson. ‘Starlings were a real highlight,’ she recalls. ‘There was great competition in the fleet with more than 100 boats at the nationals. Going from week to week with all your friends to different regattas at clubs around the country also taught me that sailing
MGR2025
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