Australian National Championships - Success for Southport YC youths

by Bronwen Ince on 23 Jan 2014 For the 2013-14 Australian National Championships 16 Southport Yacht Club vessels and 19 Youth Sailors travelled to Melbourne with High Performance Coach Shane Smith over the summer break to compete.

Congratulations to Tom Siganto and Charlie Wyatt for their tremendous win in the 29er Australian Nationals, and third place in the youth championships, they were followed closely by fellow SYC Members Kyle O'Connell and Shon Mori, finishing seventh in the Nationals and fourth in the Youth Nationals. Our female crew members also finished with tremendous results; Claire McInally and Victoria Swadling finishing third in the Female Nationals and second in the Female Youth Nationals.

The Mornington Yacht Club in Victoria held the 2014 Optimist Australian Nationals with a total of 360 entrants, this saw the biggest single class regatta ever held in Australia.

Southport Yacht Club had a total of 13 youth sailors travel to Victoria for the Nationals, with entrants in the Open, Intermediate and Green fleets. Another successful regatta for Southport Yacht Club with Charlie Piacun taking home first place in the Green Fleet, followed closely by Ned Overall: second, Cameron Bradburn: third, Jack Wallace: fourth, William Overall: 11th and Adelaide Pullin: 82nd, this was also Adelaide's first ever time finishing a race.

First time sailor at a National Championship, Tom Wright finished second in the Intermediate Fleet, congratulations Tom. The open fleet saw six of our Youth Sailors compete, Justin Wise was the 15th Australian to finish, Justin has now qualified to join the Australia Sailing Squad, Ashleigh Swadling: 10th Female in Silver Fleet, Matt Dickinson: 47th Silver Fleet, this was also Matt's first time sailing at a National Championships, Blake Wilson: first Bronze Fleet, Max Quan: seventh Bronze Fleet and Riley Cameron: 16th Bronze Fleet.

A big well done to all of the Southport Yacht Club Youth Sailors, this is a phenomenal result for Southport Yacht Club youth sailors at one National Regatta level! We look forward to seeing the junior sailors compete at World Championships.

Southport Yacht Club is host to a very active sailing community for both children and adults, while our junior and youth program has produced a wealth of talented sailors who we can see perform extremely well at both a Club and National level, the youth program at SYC offers a range of different opportunities to all levels of sailors.

Southport Yacht Club website: click here