Vietnam Match Cup 2010 – off the chart

It’s still there on the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) website, but the Vietnam Match Cup slated to take place in Nha Trang (21-26 September) has been cancelled – or at best postponed by a year.

Last night at the Korea Match Cup 2010 Gala Dinner, Sail-World Asia spoke to WMRT Tour Director Craig Mitchell who confirmed that the Vietnam event is on hold. “We and our Vietnamese partners were not quite able to get the funding in place – we were about half way there, and the local partners were still confident that it “could be done”, but it would have meant trimming some of the elements that go towards always pulling an WMRT event out of the top drawer.”

“We have therefore decided that the Vietnam Match Cup will not take place this year. We’d rather spend a little longer getting everything in place than go with a less-than-perfect event, which would not be good for the WMRT in general.”

Mitchell also acknowledged that Nha Trang was a “challenging” place to hold a match racing series. The plan was to hold the event right in front of the main beach, which often has a steep breaking surf close inshore. Match racing requires somewhere for the boats to dock and for crews to change over (although the latter can be done with RIB transfers). It is 2-3 km from the proposed venue to the nearest ‘harbour’ type facility, which is not a practical option. “We were looking at floating pontoon systems running out from the beach, and we also looked at a temporary pier of some sort. It’s something that is very important and requires a lot of consideration.”

For the time being, Vietnam Match Cup is over the horizon - but it is still definitely on the radar.