Peter Burling Debuts on WMRT with New Zealand Match Racing Team
Meet the Team
Peter Burling is not a name you’ll find anywhere amongst the previous winners of events on the World Match Racing Tour. In fact this is the first time he has ever competed in an event on the Tour, but his competitors in this week’s Perth Match Cup will be treating him with a great deal of respect.
Why? Well if you go to the World Sailing website and look up this Kiwi’s history, you’ll see that in the last three years he has competed in 23 major international events, and has won all but one of them. That tally includes an Olympic Gold Medal, four World Championships and three European Championships.
Peter and his crew Blair Tuke have dominated the high performance 49er skiff on a world basis since getting a Silver Medal at the 2012 Olympics in England. He also stepped out of his 49er to win the International Moth World Championships against an unprecedented line up of Olympic and America’s Cup stars.
As you would expect of a sailor of such stature, he can also pull in a pretty impressive team to help him adapt to two hulls instead of one. Blair Tuke is making the transition with him, and their established teamwork will be invaluable.
Also on the team this week is Australian Glenn Ashby, one of the world’s best catamaran sailors, with an Olympic Silver Medal to his name, plus sixteen catamaran world championships. He won his Olympic medal at the 2008 event in Qindao, China, sailing the Tornado class, and also won the World Championships in that class in ’08 and ’09.
Making up the fourth member of the team is rapidly rising young Kiwi Josh Junior, who is no stranger to the Swan River, having sailed in the Warren Jones International Youth Regatta, winning it in 2012.
Their coach and reserve crew man, Ray Davies has huge depth of experience, ranging from winning the Volvo Ocean Race, to being a very successful America’s Cup tactician.
