Solicitor from Southampton leads in St. Moritz

St. Moritz is better known for the Cresta toboggan run, skiing and the lake - which when frozen in winter hosts a number of icy sports, the most bizarre of which is on a pitch laid out for cricket.

But, this week, the mountains around it are all green and its waters, always cold at 6,000 feet up and 160 feet deep, provide the track for the sixth of the nine World Match Race tour regattas. The seventh, eighth and ninth are in Portugal, Bermuda, and Malaysia.

Listen to Stuart Alexander who caught up with Andrew Pindar in St. Moritz

Leading the tour is the defending champion, Ian Williams, a 31-year old solicitor from Southampton who gave up his law books to try and make his mark on the notoriously difficult world of professional yacht racing.

In a way he has been helped by the diversion into multihull racing by some of his rivals with their eyes on an uncertain America's Cup. But Andrew Pindar, the Yorkshire printing conglomerate chairman who sponsors Williams' Team Pindar, also says that the America's Cup situation "has caused a degree of stagnation, even constipation."

He rounded off his 2007 season in the final regatta first by beating Italy's Paolo Cian in their semi-final and then lifted the Monsoon Cup by beating that most hardened of match race campaigners, Peter Gilmour of Australia.

He has only to beat his quarter-final opponent, Eric Monnin of Switzerland, to ensure that he retains the overall lead at the end of the regatta on Sunday. But, buoyed by winning the last event in Frederikshavn, Denmark, Williams has his sights set on winning again in St. Moritz, where he has won before, helped by his brother Mark, who dropped everything to fly in and join Gerry Mitchell and Richard Sydenham after Mark Nicholls broke his right hand in a training accident.

The Artemis challenge for the Vendee Globe singlehanded, non-stop round the world race has announced that skipper Jonny Malbon has successfully completed his 5,000-mile qualifier after fitting a new mast.

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