Racing in the International One Design for the first time in more than a decade in the Bacardi Bermuda National Match Racing Championships at the weekend proved to be a blast for Dean Barker.

The Softbank Team Japan skipper and his crew won the regatta without losing a single match.

“It has been 11 years since I last raced in an IOD, and the first time as a crew that Jeremy [Lomas], Fuku [Kazuhiko Sofuku], Chris [Draper] and myself have raced together in a Match Racing event,” Barker said. “It was great for Softbank Team Japan to have the opportunity to race in the Bermuda Match Race Nationals.”

Barker and his colleagues found Saturday’s shifty 8-15 knot breezes to be a handful.

“We ended up winning all our races although it was not always straight forward,” Barker, who won the Louis Vuitton Cup with Emirates Team New Zealand at the previous America’s Cup cycle in 2013, said. “The conditions on Hamilton Harbour are very tricky with a lot of variations in wind strength and direction, and of course the IOD is a very difficult boat to learn to sail well.”

Barker competed against local skippers Blythe Walker, Jason Saints and Joshua Greenslade in Saturday’s regatta, which was also a qualifier for next month’s Argo Group Gold Cup.

Walker earned the right to represent Bermuda at the Gold Cup after finishing runner-up to Barker, who beat his Bermudian rival in the first to two points final of the national match racing championships.

“The standard of the local fleet was really good, and clearly you could see that they know the boats well and are quite fast at times,” Barker said.

“We didn’t lead all our races, but managed to keep things tight and take advantage of mistakes from the other teams at times. It seems that some things never change in Match Racing.”

Team Japan and fellow challengers Artemis Racing are the two America’s Cup teams set to compete in the Gold Cup.

Both teams are also competing in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Bermuda, which follows closely on the heels of the Gold Cup.