Hardy Cup - New Zealand's Adrian Short continues winning form

by Peter Campbell on 8 Feb 2011 New Zealander Adrian Short has continued his unbeaten run on the second day of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s prestigious Hardy Cup, the ISAF grade 3, under 25 match racing regatta on Sydney Harbour.

He completed his nine matches in the first round-robin today with three more victories, comfortably beating fellow Kiwi sailors Josh Porebski and Samantha Osborne and Australian Will Mackenzie.

Short and his crew of Logan Sutherland and Scott Burling, representing the Warkworth Sandspit Yacht Club, is far ahead of his nearest competitor, Will Tiller, from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. Tiller and his crew of Harry Thurston and Shaun Mason, has had six wins out of seven matches. Two more matches are scheduled for late this afternoon.

In his three matches today, Short, who won the Hardy Cup in 2009, defeated Porebski, from Wellington’s Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, by 20 seconds, and Olympic aspirant Samantha Osborne, from RNZYS, by 2 minutes 16 seconds.

His third win, against Mackenzie, from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, was by a margin of 37 seconds.

So far four teams have completed the first round robin, with Short scoring nine wins, Osborne three, Mackenzie and Porebski one each. With two matches to sail, Will Tiller, from the Full Metal Jacket Racing at the RNZYS, has six wins while Matthew Steven, representing Wellington’s Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, has four wins.

Best of the Australian skippers so far are David Chapman and Jordan Reece, both from the RSYS’s True Blue Racing team, who have each had four wins from seven matches.