Nick Egnot-Johnson reflects on big victory at Match Race Germany

RNZYS Performance Programme Team KNOTS Racing yesterday pulled off one of their biggest ever victories, claiming the Match Race Germany title after defeating Swiss match racing maestro Eric Monnin in a very tight final. 

Nick Egnot-Johnson, Zak Merton, Tim Snedden, Sam Barnett and Bradley McLaughlin pulled of a superb final day performance on Lake Constance, beating German Max Gurgel in the Semi-Final which set up a showdown with the very experienced Eric Monnin and his Capvis Swiss Match Race Team. 

Knots Racing claimed the first race of the best of 5 final, but then lost the next two to go behind 2-1 which meant Monnin only needed one more win to claim the title. However Egnot-Johnson and his Knots Racing Team roared back into life to claim the final two races and with them a 3-2 final victory. 

Speaking to RNZYS following the regatta win, Egnot-Johnson reflected on what was a big win for his team –

“The regatta was an awesome experience for us. It was a real challenge trying to sail 9 tonne boats on a light and shifty wind lake in Germany, somewhere we have never sailed before, but we got better and better as the regatta went on and managed to get a good grip on handling the boat.”

“The level of competition was super high and we loved the closeness of the racing throughout the regatta, there were no easy races across the five days.”

“The final against Eric Monnin was really tough, he is a very very experienced world class match racer. He was very much putting us to the test on our pre-starts so we had to battle through that, but luckily we managed to have a genuine speed edge and good boat handling around the course which allowed us to prevail in the end.”

“The Knots Racing European tour continues – we are currently on our way to Sweden for a training block, and then on to Netherlands for the M32 European Series Holland Regatta which will be a completely new challenge for us.”

Make sure you follow @knotsracing on Facebook and Instagram to stay updated with the team. 

By Andrew Delves RNZYS