Harken Youth International- Steele takes the lead into Round Robin 2

by Melanie Benton on 12 Feb 2012
Former World Optimist Champion, Chris Steele from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron has moved up the leader board, winning all of his five matches today. With a total of ten wins overall he is one point clear of Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s Jordan Reece, who also posted an impressive five wins from five matches today.

Chris Steele commented on his day on the water, 'We had a good day, we didn’t lose any races and had some good crew work. There is still some tweaking to be done and our first race today was with Tim Coltman. We lost the pre-start and were playing catch up with them throughout the whole race.

In the end though we made a couple of good lay-line calls and got right back in the race.

We rolled them in the Spinnaker hoist on the final leg, which led us to a luffing match (four or five times!) before we finally broke the overlap. Both of us gybed late to the finish and we went to luff but Tim broached and we were able to sail away to the finish.

There is still some tough races tomorrow! We are just chipping away, one race at a time.'

Next overall on eight wins is yesterday’s leader Tim Coltman (Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club) and the second Squadron team helmed by David Hazard.

Coltman had a tough draw today with loses to Steele by 20 seconds and two losses to Reece both with close margins.
Hazard had a re-sail to complete first thing this morning, with a win over the Squadron all female team. Then he was able to continue his winning steak adding four wins to his total.

Looking to break into the top four is Ashlen Rooklyn representing the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia with a total of 7 wins overall and next is the all female crew on 5 wins overall. De Lange and her girls sailed two extra matches today, with this morning re-sail and the first match of flight 3 versus fellow female skipper Carla Sexton from the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. In their match Sexton had the misfortune to get the pin end buoy hooked around her keel while trying to clear a finish line penalty, so scored a DNF.

Bucklands Beach Yacht Club newcomer George Brasell beat De Lange in the closest race of the day by just one second, with a total of four wins overall puts the young BBYC team in seventh place.

Adam Middleton representing the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club grabbed one win today over Royal Sydney’s, Nicholas Howe by nine seconds and holds eighth place overall.

This leaves Sexton and Howe posting one win each to date.

Although the weather in Auckland has been drizzly and grey the wind has been steady at 15 knots northerly.
The tides however have made laying courses tricky, and this morning the Race Management team decided to send the boats into Big Shoal Bay for some much needed tidal relief.

As the tide started to ebb the decision was made to bring the racing back to the area in front of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Racing is scheduled to being tomorrow (Monday) at 10am, with the remainder of Round Robin 2, Flight 3 to complete.

Round Robin One
Flight Five Resail
Hazard beat de Lange by 57s

Flight Seven
de Lange Beat Sexton by 15s
Steele beat Coltman by 20s
Reece beat rooklyn by 40s
Hazard beat Howe by 1m
Middleton beat Brasell by 32s

Flight Eight
Reece beat Sexton by 44s
Coltman beat Steele by 20s
Rooklyn beat Middleton by 8s
Hazard beat Brasell by 34s
Steele beat Howe by 21s

Flight Nine
Reece beat Coltman by 10s
de Lange beat Brasell by 8s
Howe beat Middleton by 14s
Rooklyn beat Hazard
Steele beat Sexton by 1m 10 s


Round Robin Two
Flight One
Reece beat Coltman by 30s
Hazard beat Rooklyn by 4s
Middleton beat Howe by 9s
Steele beat Sexton by 34s
Brasell beat De lange by 1s

Flight Two
Steele beat Howe by 27s
Reece beat Sexton by 48s
Coltman beat De Lange by 17s
Rooklyn beat Middleton by 20s
Hazard beat Brasell by 10s

Points Table
Tim Coltman - RPNYC - 7 wins / 1 Losses
Chris Steele - RNZYS - 8 / 1
Jordan Reece - RSYS - 7 / 2
David Hazard - RNZYS - 6 / 3
Ashlen Rooklyn - CYCA - 5 / 4
Katie de Lange - RNZYS - 4 / 5
George Brasell - BBYC - 3 / 6
Adam Middleton - RPNYC - 2 / 7
Carla Sexton - RPAYC - 1 / 8
Nicholas Howe - RSYS - 1 / 8