- 57th Congressional Cup Final will be Williams (GBR) versus Canfield (USA)
In the semi-finals of the Congressional Cup at Long Beach YC, Britain’s Ian Williams beat Johnie Berntsson of Sweden in the final race decider to claim a 3 to 2 victory.
While in the other semi-final, defending champion Taylor Canfield of the USA took a 3 to 1 win over Chris Poole (USA).
Williams and his Gladstones Long Beach Team will now meet Canfield and the Stars+Stripes Team in a best of five race final on Saturday.
Cranfield is a five time winner of the Congressional Cup, Williams a four time winner.
Berntsson and Poole will meet in a best of three race sail-off for third place.
As the teams changed down the genoas to smaller jibs on the boats, Berntsson was first on the score board winning his match over Williams, while Canfield took first blood over Poole. The scores reversed in the second flight putting both matches at 1-1.
In flight 3, Ian Williams took the lead over Berntsson as the umpires black flagged the Swedish skipper putting them out of the race. In the other match, Canfield defeated Poole to go 2-1.
Berntsson fought back in flight 4 to even his scoreline to 2-2 against Williams and taking the match to a deciding final race.
With a penalty against him, Poole found himself with a convincing lead in the final leg of his race against Canfield and planned to offset his penalty at the finish line.
But in taking the penalty turn, his spinnaker fell in the water and Canfield crossed the finish line as Poole’s crew struggled to regain control of the spinnaker.
In the deciding match for Berntsson and Williams, it was Williams that found the pace around the track to cross the line ahead of Berntsson and securing his place in the final.
