Colin Mullins International Youth Regatta day 1- David Gilmour leads

by John Roberson on 28 Jan 2011 Colin Mullins International Youth Regatta day 1 had young Australian skipper David Gilmour head the leaderboard in the end, putting an 8 win – 1 loss scoreline on the board after a testing day afloat.

David, son of match racing legend Peter Gilmour, finished fourth in this event last year, but commented, 'last year was pretty much our first event as a team, and we’ve done a couple more events since then, we’ve got a lot better teamwork this year, and we’ve got another guy this year, Garth (Ellingham) from Phil Robertson’s team with us and he’s a really big help.'

Gilmour’s only loss of the day was to Harry Thurston from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland, he explained, 'that was this morning when it was really light, we thought they would abandon it, we just couldn’t get off the start line, he was almost at the top mark by the time we started.'

Holding second place on the leaderboard is Sydney skipper Evan Walker, representing the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, who only suffered two losses in nine races, one to Gilmour and the other to Tom Johnson, who like Gilmour is sailing for Perth’s Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club.

Harry Thurston is the top overseas competitor in third place on six points, and well within reach of the two skippers ahead of him.

With temperatures approaching 40 degrees, and with only a light and fickle easterly breeze in the morning, before a steady seabreeze in the afternoon, it was a physically and mentally testing day for the young crews.

The Colin Mullins Regatta is a qualifying event for the Warren Jones International Youth Regatta next week, and is being hosted by the Royal Perth Yacht Club, with racing taking place on the Swan River’s Matilda Bay.

Results after day 1:
Skipper Country Score
David Gilmour AUS 8 - 1
Evan Walker AUS 7 – 2
Harry Thurston NZL 6 - 3
Matthew Steven NZL 5 – 4
Tom Johnson AUS 5 - 4
Tristan Brown AUS 4 – 5
Danielle Bowater NZL 1 - 8
Kosaku Yoshida JPN 0 - 9