- Britain’s Ian Williams wins 5th Congressional Cup at Long Beach YC
In the final of the 2022 Congressional Cup Williams and his Gladstones Long Beach Team faced off with Tyalor Canfield and his Stars+Stripes Team in a best of five race final on Saturday.
Cranfield won the opening match, but Williams came back with three back to back wins to clinch his fifth Cup win by 3 to 1.
Williams was sailing with Matt Cornwell, Andrew Estcourt, Jon Gunderson, Steve Mitchell and Richard Sydenham.
Taylor Canfield is a five-time Congressional Cup winner and was the defending champion.
Cranfield was sailing with Alec Anderson, Mike Buckley, Matt Cassidy, Ian Liberty, George Peet and Elisabeth Whitener.
57th Congressional Cup Final – Ian Williams GBR v Taylor Canfield USA
Canfield captured the first match and Williams the second; with a photo-finish going to Williams in the third as he did a hasty ‘spin and win’ to strike a penalty in the last seconds of the race.
In the fourth flight Williams, a six-time World Champion, took control of the race from start to finish, to take match point and his fifth Congressional Cup title.
“I was devastated not to be here last year; and even more gutted now that I remember what I missed,” said Williams. “I wanted to try to be the first to five wins so it feels fantastic now to have matched Taylor. What a great competitor: to match him is fantastic; I guess now it’s a race to six!”
Williams applauded his crew saying, “We hadn’t been here for three years, I hadn’t match raced for 18 months, and it’s been years for some of the guys. So we had a lot of work to do, but just kept improving every day; all the way through the finals. I can’t say enough about these guys.”
In the sail-off for third place . . . Chris Poole USA, sailing with Joachim Ashenbrener, Mal Parker, Rob Scrivnor, Graeme Spence and Ryan Wilmot took a 3 to 1 victory over Johnie Berntsson SWE.
Berntsson was with sailing with Herman Andersson, Fredrik Aurell, Martin Berntsson, Robert Skarp and Patrik Sturesson.
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