Queensland Match Racing Championship - Success to match racing newbies

by Tracey Johnstone on 23 Jun 2014 Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron’s (RQYS) team’s first foray into Match Racing proved fruitful as they took out the top honour in last weekend’s Queensland Match Racing Championship held at Mooloolaba.

Skipper Charlie Wyatt and crew members Alex Gough and Matt Parrott were new to Match Racing coming into the Championship.

After three Round Robins and enough points to get into the Final match, they had the trophy in their sights and the river racing conditions reasonably worked out.

Two quick races in the light winds, with wins in both, were enough for them secure the Queensland title.

The RQYS team had only done two days training in the two weeks prior to the event, but surprisingly they adapted the championship venue and challenges very wells.

'It would have been good to have some local knowledge of this area and where you can enter the box and so on,' Wyatt said.

'The training session beforehand on Friday afternoon was really valuable.'

They were up against teams from NSW’s Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club (RPAYC), Queensland’s Noosa Rowing and Yacht Club (NYRC), Victoria’s Sandringham Yacht Club (SYC) and host club, Mooloolaba.

The weekend was plagued with very light, shifty winds and even a short burst of heavy rain.

The teams had to sail the difficult conditions with great care to avoid any disastrous loss of speed through wrong tactical decisions.

'We kind of took every race as it came,' Wyatt added.

The first race day was full of puffs and glassy patches on the river in front of The Wharf Mooloolaba.

The host club, Mooloolaba Yacht Club (MYC), had the course set where the spectators could watch all the action.

After a day of slow racing, PRO Warren Myles was forced to call for the finish the first day at the end of the second Round Robin.

The RQYS team results on day one reflected some hesitation in the first Round Robin as they, like all the other, teams finished on two points each.

In the second Round Robin the RQYS team again finished on two points, but they started to show more confidence in racing the Elliott 6s and the soft, shifty Mooloolah River conditions.

At the end of day one the defending Queensland Open champion, Klade Hauschildt, and his Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club team were feeling confident, sitting on five points while three other teams were all on equal four points.

On day two racing was postponed for almost an hour as the five competing teams anxiously watched the breeze flick from west to east.

Finally, Round Robin three finally got underway as anxious teams looked to move up the ladder as they faced the possibility of going from the Round Robin straight into the Final matches.

The continuing soft breeze and a few delays as protests were heard on the water forced the race committee into dropping the Semi Final matches and moving straight into the Finals.

NYRC and RQYS as the top placed teams out of the Round Robins went into the Final match while the two youth teams from RPAYC and MYC went into the Petite Final matches.

Sadly, Tom Trotman and his SYC crew of Jack Lloyd and Dan Gomez were left to watch the final action from the shore.

In the Petite Final, it was close racing between the RPAYC team of Will Dagarville, Evelyn Foster and Oscar Stranack, and the MYC team of James Hodgson, Taylor Rogers and Todd Billington.

On shore RPAYC’s coach, Tom Spithill, could be heard muttering stressed instructions to his young team.

The first match went to RPAYC, the second went to MYC and the third match, with the course shortened at the top mark due to the dying breeze, went in dramatic fashion to RPAYC.

They found the little breeze that was there, extended their lead over MYC and took the final gun, but with a protest to be heard.

The Protest Committee chair, Andrew Baglin, explained the outcome of the hearing.

'The request was denied on two grounds: The first one was that the red flag wasn’t displayed as soon as they became aware of the circumstances.

'They really needed to put the red flag up earlier like on the first work or latest when they saw the other boat go around the top mark without having tacked.

'The second grounds was the testimony from the umpires was that although the conditions weren’t great, they didn’t have significant effect on the outcome of the match.

'They were behind RPAYC from the start and RPAYC extended from there.'

As a result, RPAYC took out third place and the overall Youth trophy.

The MYC team finished fourth and won the Queensland Match Racing Championship Youth trophy.

In the Final and with the best of three races up for grabs, RQYS and the NYRC team of Hauschildt, Hayden Johnson and Ben Vercoe were ready to do battle.

From the start RQYS team showed they had found their pace.

The racing was tight between the two teams, but RQYS clearly extended their lead over NYRC from the start in both races to comfortably take out the first two races.

A very disappointed Noosa team finished in second place overall while RQYS won the Queensland Match Racing Championships Open trophy.