Australian Youth Match Racing Championship - Close racing on Day 2

by Peter Campbell on 24 Sep 2012 Australian Youth Match Racing Championship, hosted by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, is being sailed on Hobart’s River Derwent.

Hobart sailor Christopher ('George') Jones and his Sydney rival Byron White are still equal after three round-robins.

In their one encounter today, Jones, one of Tasmania’s leading Laser dinghy sailors, defeated White, give him two wins ove the New South Wales champion youth team.

However, as the strong northerly breeze died away in the early afternoon, Jones and his crew of Jonny Cooper, Dylan Gore and Hugh Jones, lost their round-robin match to the lightweight NSW crew of Milly Bennet, Alice Tarnawski and Jack Nairn.

This left Jones, who is representing the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, and White, with his crew of Ashlen Rooklyn and Jack Breislin from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, on 10 wins each.

Bennet, from the Royal Prince Aflred Yacht, and her crew of Alice Tarnawski and Jack Nairn, have had just four wins.

A fourth round-robin is scheduled for tomorrow morning, with Jones and White certain to head the rankings going into the finals in the afternoon.

'Again we saw close racing, with the morning racing also calling for good boat handling as the breeze gusted to 22 knots with choppy waters,' said international race officer Nick Hutton.

'But at the same time, further down Sandy Bay some 30 young sailors were sailing their tiny Optimist dinghies in the same wind strength but ever bigger waves,' Hutton Event website