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Nick Egnot-Johnson and his Knots Racing team are eyeing up April's Congressional Cup as they look to return to racing on the international scene.
The team, fresh from winning last weekend's Harken New Zealand Match Racing Championships at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, have been invited to compete at the Congressional Cup which also doubles as the first event on the World Match Racing Tour.
Knots Racing received a card to compete on last year's Match Racing Tour but didn't participate due to complexities around Covid-19. They're still waiting to hear if they have a card for the 2022 tour but are hopeful due to the fact Egnot-Johnson is still ranked third on the world match racing rankings.
The Congressional Cup, sailed at Long Beach in California, has been contested since 1967 and is considered as the 'grandfather of match racing'. Egnot-Johnson and Knots Racing have raced in the event previously, and announced themselves as a rising force on the match racing scene at the 2019 event when narrowly missing out on a place in the semifinals.
Alastair Gifford and his team have also received an invitation to compete this year after they secured the US Grand Slam in 2021.
Knots Racing will look to sharpen up their skills ahead of the Congressional Cup after a fairly dormant 18 months. The crew of Egnot-Johnson, Sam Barnett, Tim Snedden, Zak Merton, Bradley McLaughlin and Gifford have all been sailing different boats in that time, in anything from Moths and Waszps to Melges 40s, but felt under-done going into the national match racing championships.
"We were pretty nervous going in because it had been so long and we were pretty rusty," Egnot-Johnson said. "We didn't have the same confidence we normally have but we made solid improvements throughout the regatta and, by the finals, were sailing at the same level we were 18 months ago."
It was just as well they did, because they came under enormous pressure from Reuben Corbett in the five-race final, with the title decided in the final 5m of the last race.
"It ended up being less than a foot," Egnot-Johnson explained. "It was super-close. It was incredible and what made it even more special was the fact we haven't been able to race for 18 months, so to do it in the first one back was satisfying.
"Normally our strength is our starting but it was actually our weakness. We had to rely on our speed, boat handling and team work to get us over the line. Reuben is probably the best we've ever come up against in the pre-start. He's the master."
Corbett runs the performance programme at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and was also in the top 10 of the world match rankings in 2016. He trained with Egnot-Johnson in the leadup to the nationals so the two teams knew each other's playbook well.
Corbett's team and Knots Racing couldn't be separated after the double round-robin, with 11 wins and one defeat (they split their two round robin matches), and both won their semifinals 3-0.
Robbie McCutcheon and GCH Racing beat Megan Thomson's 2.0 Racing 2-0 in the petit final to finish third overall but Thomson then went on to beat Maeve White in the women's final to claim the women's national title and lift the Leith Mossman Memorial Trophy.
Megan Thomson and her team won the women's title. Photos: Billy Woodworth / RNZYS.
The final race of the finals series was a classic, with penalties, luffing matches and the tightest of finishes that saw both teams sitting head to wind near the finish line. Egnot-Johnson just got the nose of his boat across the line first to claim his second national title.
Final standings from the Harken New Zealand Match Racing Championships at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron:
1st: Nick Egnot-Johnson
2nd: Reuben Corbett
3rd: Robbie McCutcheon
4th: Megan Thomson
5th: Josh Hyde
6th: Braedyn Denney
7th: Maeve White
