Warren Jones Youth Regatta 2014 - Team Gilmour dominates

by Team Gilmour on 2 Feb 2014 Warren Jones Youth Regatta 2014 - On Friday afternoon Team Gilmour successfully defended their title at the prestigious Warren Jones Youth Match Regatta on home waters at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. The Warren Jones Regatta is without a doubt the most competitive youth (under 25) match racing regatta in the World and this year the level was higher than ever with 6 of the 12 teams ranked inside the top 50.

TG recruited Luke Parkinson for this event as our normal pitman Luke Payne unfortunately aged out, we also welcomed on board young 14 year old James Stout for some extra weight as well as Fang Warren on the mainsheet. Bowman and veteran of the event Pete Nicholas said 'I am absolutely wrapped to win my second Warren Jones, this is my 11th and final event. It’s such as great event and we are lucky to have such as great team.'

The Team sailed consistently all week but we really begun to hit our straps in the quarter finals. We chose to sail against Andy Green from the CYCA, who put up a great effort in his first Warren Jones, but we managed to dispatch him in two races.

Again we had the choice of our opponent for the semi finals, we decided to race Matt Jerwood from SoPYC who is quite new to match racing but had been sailing well all week. Although Matt and his team made it a tough battle our finals experience gave us an edge and we managed to win our semi final in two races qualifying us into the final.

We then had the time to relax back at the club house and watch the other semi final between Sam Gilmour and Chris Steel from Royal NZ Yacht Squadron. Who were fighting it out in the other semi finals eventually Sam and his Neptune racing team came away with the win in the final race beating the young Kiwi team two-one.

This set up the all Gilmour final and with Freshwater bay slowly being filled with spectator boats the racing got underway. In the first race we were up against the ropes after receiving a penalty in the pre start and both boats had an even start fighting it out for the lead up the first beat by the top mark we managed to clutch a small lead and from there we extended the lead as far as we could and completed our penalty on the finish line we had just enough distance to do this and crossed the finish line half a boat length in front.

The next two races we sailed much cleaner and didn't receive any penalties and it was our boat speed that gave us the edge in the close situations in both races we were able to sail to small lead by the top marks and extend from there. This gave us the win with a three-zero score in the finals.

For Peter, Will and Fang this was their final Warren Jones so the win made it very special for them and as Pete had been competing in the event for over a decade he made the acceptance speech making special mention of Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Clubs support and congratulated the other teams especially Neptune Racing for a hard fought finals noting it was the most competitive Warren Jones he had competed in.

Dave, Will and Fang have now gone to Sydney to compete in the Hardy Cup being held this week at Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and they will keep you updated with their progress their.

Event website: click here