2013 ISAF Youth Worlds - Australians off to a good start

by Craig Heydon on 16 Jul 2013 The 2013 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships, racing is underway with three Australian crews ending day one in top four positions, in Limassol, Cyprus.

After a slight delay due to a lack of breeze more than 350 sailors from 61 nations began racing across eight classes on Monday. At the end of the opening day the Australian Sailing Youth Team’s 420 girl’s crew of Carrie Smith and Ella Clark lead, with SL16 pair Paul Darmanin and Lucy Copeland third and Harry Price and Angus Williams fourth in the 29er.

Carrie Smith and Ella Clark are competing at their third straight ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships having won silver in Ireland last year. The West Australian pair began the regatta with a second in the 420 girl’s fleet, winning race two and rounding the day out with a fifth to lead overall.

Paul Darmanin and Lucy Copeland were also silver medallists in Ireland in 2012 and got their second Youth Worlds campaign together in the multihull SL16 class off to a good start and are currently third overall.

The pair was fifth in the opening race of the regatta before finishing third in race two and seventh in race three.

'We arrived down at the club this morning to find extremely light conditions,' said Copeland. 'With our local knowledge from training before the regatta we had a pretty good idea of what the wind was going to do. After a short postponement on shore we managed to fit in all three races with a good 10 to 14 knots.

'Paul and I managed to stay towards the front of the fleet in all three races and are currently sitting third overall,' she said. 'The forecast for tomorrow is looking very similar to today, hopefully we’ll be able to keep our scorecard low and work our way up the leader board.'

Australia’s 29er representatives Harry Price and Angus Williams are competing at their first ISAF Youth Worlds, having only teamed up at the end of 2012, and ended day one in Cyprus in fourth position.

Price and Williams began the event with an 11th position, moving up the leader board in race two to finish third and crossing the line fifth in the final race of the day.

'Today we aimed to set ourselves up with a good start to the regatta and managed to do so,' said Williams. 'The wind came in which suited us and helped us to achieve our results. We had a bit of a shaky start to the first race when I somehow managed to unhook myself, still unknown how, and fell out of the boat but Harry was very quick to respond and managed to keep the boat upright.

'That put us on the back foot but we managed to work our way back through the fleet and got a good result for the first race,' he said. 'In the second and third races we managed to not have any mishaps and sailed conservatively and got some good results. Tomorrow we’re aiming to do the same and hope for some breeze.'

Defending Laser Radial boy’s champion Mark Spearman ended day one in 11th position following a 21st and a sixth from the opening two races.

Louise Evans is currently 29th in the Laser Radial girl’s fleet after being black flagged in race one and then finishing 17th in race two.

In the RS:X girl’s class Annalise Gilbert, competing at her third ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships, is currently in 14th position after a 15th, an 11th and a 17th.

Tasmanian windsurfer Jock Calvert is 25th in the RS:X boy’s fleet with the Youth Worlds debutant finishing day one with a 24th, a 22nd and a 26th.

Racing continues in Cyprus on Tuesday.