3rd Asia Pacific Student Cup – University of Western Australia wins

by Calvin Lim on 21 Sep 2014 Going into the final day of racing at the third Asia Pacific Student Cup, seven teams still stood a chance of being crowned King of the Bay as the quarter finals closed out and move to the semis and the finals. As if listening to the sailor’s pleas for more wind after a very fluctuating day three, the final day saw plenty of sunshine and also a nice south-westerly breeze coming in consistently, setting the competitors on their way.

Finishing the quarters, Australia’s Boulden managed to grind out one more win to see off Singapore’s Low as did the All-girls boat helmed by Yokoyama, who saw off Malaysia’s Aslam with three straight wins. The All-Singapore battle between Choy and Lim went to the wire as Choy managed to overturn Lim’s 2-1 score advantage to level the scores. Despite seemingly coming off worse in a tense pre-start in match five, Choy managed to eke out that extra height on the first beat which helped him seal a 3-2 win.

This setup an interesting semi-final line with Choy, dinghy specialist on the 420 and Byte, pitted against France’s Courtois, hot off an impressive World University Games run, as well as Yokoyama’s young all-girls boat against the experienced guys from Australia in Boulden’s team.

In the light air, Choy put his dinghy prowess to good use, managing to squeeze out a 2-0 lead in this best of five despite falling behind off both pre-starts. Meanwhile, Yokoyama saw herself pinned back 1-1 against Boulden as a preempted gybe set of the top mark failed to pay off allowing Boulden to sneak in to level the scores.

True to the oft-saying that in the Bay, you get all kinds of wind, even really unpredictable ones, flight 3 of the semi-finals saw more blustery conditions, with some pressure seeing boats heel dangerously over. Courtois seemed to thrive in these conditions as she capitalized on her stronger pre-starts to level matters 2-2. The other semi final saw Boulden go through 3-1 with a clinically won race 3 and then closing out race 4 with Yokoyama having a penalty outstanding.

In the winner-take-all race of semi-final one, Courtois led off the start after finding the overlap to hook Choy on the line but found Choy hard to shake off as the Singaporean closed in with well chosen tacks which allowed him to just round on the inside of Courtois at the top mark. From there, despite the efforts from the French, Choy managed to keep them at arm’s length and overcame even some spinnaker hoisting issues to book his place in the finals.

This set up a fascinating finale with Yokoyama against Courtois in the Petit Finals and Choy against Boulden for the Grand Finals. Many were curious to see if Choy could cap off his improving performances by taking yet another seeded scalp after beating the round robin’s number one and two seeds. This underdog theme was reminiscent of the previous edition’s event as Japan’s Kouhei swept the field in the knockout stages despite qualifying as eighth in the round robins.

In the Petit Finals, Yokoyama manage to take advantage of the fading conditions to take an early lead in the contest but ultimately could not overcome the better teamwork and technique of Courtois’ team and eventually just coming out short 1-2 in a best of three.

In the finals, Choy made a dream start in this best of five, coming off the start even but managing to carve out a two boat length lead which he never relinquished. This was quickly erased as Boulden matched his performance and gave a polished race 2 which leveled the scores. In match three, it was flags galore as both boats tried to pin penalties on each other only for the umpire to keep his flags down. At the gun, it was Boulden who was able to get that pivotal overlap allowing him to just luff Choy up and sending him into another circle which put him at the wrong end of the line. From there, Boulden manage to hold his lead up till the top mark where Choy seemed to create the starboard inside room at the mark from out of nowhere and edge ahead. Boulden then seemed to pull out his own personal gust as he coasted ahead of Choy to take this match home with a couple of boat lengths spare. The fourth match of the final saw sporadic lulls start to appear on the course, part of the after effects of the earlier storm cloud pressure felt earlier. A split tack start saw Boulden head to the left while Choy position himself to the right. In the coming back, Boulden was clear ahead and only seemed to build on this position in the downwind and second beat.

As the pressure started to drop, it resulted in a nail-biting end to this match as Boulden sitting in perhaps the biggest patch all day saw his half leg lead eaten away by Choy before the pressure finally hit him, allowing him to sail home the victory.

The Asia Pacific Student Cup has once again lived up to its name in bringing some of the best local and regional talent here in Marina Bay to compete and the last few days of competition has seen many of the sailors find their grove and put in some top notch performances. As a platform to give sailors greater exposure to match racing and raising the caliber of the local fraternity, the regatta has indeed ticked many of these boxes along with building strong bonds of friendships between the sailors. It has been a tremendous few days and we look forward to 2015 for the next edition of the event.

Final results:

1st - Will Boulden (Australia, University of Western Australia)
2nd - Darren Choy (Singapore)
3rd - Pauline Courtois (France)
4th - Natasha Yokoyama (Singapore)
5th - Collin Lim (Singapore, Singapore Management University)
6th - Megat Ahmad Aslam (Malaysia)
7th - Low Wen Chun (Singapore)
8th - James Harayda (Great Britain, United World College- Southeast Asia)
9th - Jevyn Ong (Singapore)
10th - Bryan Chan (Singapore, Singapore Management University)
11th - Victoria Koh (Singapore, Singapore Management University)
12th - Chen Lin Hsiao (Taiwan)