QLD Match Racing Championship platform for emerging talent

by Tracey Johnstone on 7 Sep 2016 The QLD Match Racing Championships, to be conducted by Mooloolaba Yacht Club from September 16 to 18, has attracted nine emerging-talent teams from clubs along the Australian east coast.

Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (RSYS), Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA), Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania (RYCT), Sandringham Yacht Club (SYC) will join Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (RQYS), MYC and the Sunshine Coast Sailing Team (SCST) for the three-day regatta to be contested in the MYC’s Elliott 6s on the river in front of The Wharf Mooloolaba.

Five of the teams are new or relatively new to match racing and unranked, while the other four teams are in the early stages of gaining their skills and increased ranking through local competition.

SYC will be represented by skippers Rhett Gowans and Phillipa Solly. Their coach James Sly says both Gowans and Solly have for several years been very active in dinghy racing before joining the new SYC match racing program.

“The new squad has been training every weekend since May.

“They will be doing a number of match racing inter-state events this year and Rhett will represent the club at the youth nationals,” Sly said.

On the helm for RQYS will be Brady Lowe and his Boating and RV Match Team. Lowe is the RQYS Sailing Manager, Head Coach and is leading the club’s keelboat youth program.

Lowe competed in the 2013 QLD Match Racing Championship with skipper Jack Sherring. He is yet to nominate which of his team members will be competing on the Elliott 6s which are part of the fleet that was originally owned by the CYCA before being sold on to MYC and RQYS.

RQYS is the venue for the second Australian Schools Match Racing Championship in April, 2017.

Cadet class 2015 World Champion Sam Abel will represent RYCT. He won the 2016 Tasmanian Schools Match Racing Championship before going on to place second in the inaugural Australian Schools Match Racing Championship.

Mooloolaba Yacht Club’s Andrew Meligonis has competed in local and Brisbane match racing events, but is another of the Queensland skippers that is yet to compete as a skipper in a ranking event.

The CYCA team will be led by Tom Grimes. He is currently ranked 783 after finishing fourth in the 2016 Club Marine NSW Youth Championships, first in the club’s hotly-contested Kellett Shield and second in the Captain Piper Match Racing regatta.

RSYS Coach and former state championship winner Klade Hauschildt is bringing two teams with him to his old keelboat racing stomping ground at Mooloolaba; skippers Claudia Thackray and Nick Rozenauers.

“This will be a good training regatta for my sailors and it will give them a chance to bank some more ranking points,” Hauschildt said.

Thackray has been match racing for about two years. She has been gradually working her way up the Open rankings to 646 after competing as part of the RSYS new match racing squad in her first two international events in New Zealand; the CentrePort and Nespresso youth championships.

With his High School Certificate studies mostly completed, Rozenauers is back on the water ready to focus on match racing competition. He is currently ranked 534 after competing in the 2015 Harken and Club Marine youth events.

The highest ranked of the skippers, at 231, competing in this year’s state championship is Sunshine Coast Sailing Team member James Hodgson. He will be racing in a combined crew of Mooloolaba Yacht Club and Noosa Yacht & Rowing Club sailors.

Since winning the Australian Schools Match Racing Championship in April, 17-year-old Hodgson has been off the water recovering from shoulder surgery which was the result of a school rugby tackle. He says he is fit and ready to race on his home waters.

“We always expect a high level (of competition). I don’t think it’s going to be an easy event. Hopefully my experience and that of my crew will help us get to the top,” Hodgson said.

At his last event in Hobart in April, Hodgson says Abel, even as a very new match racer, kept Hodgson working hard. “He gave us a good run for our money and I am sure he has training hard since then. He is young and has talent from the dinghies. If he understands the match racing rules, I am sure he will be a very good up and coming match racer,” Hodgson added.

The racing will be under the guidance of IRO Louise Davis. The umpire team will be Erica Kirby, Neville Willis, Ben Fels and Damien Boldyrew.

Event Manager Mike Hodgson says the line-up of young talent for the annual event will ensure an action-packed spectacle on the river course.

“The racing is in a confined area immediately in front of The Wharf complex on one side and the big mansions of Minyama Island on the other side. It’s a tight course where every decision will count. Spectators are so close to the action they can see the sailor’s faces and hear their every call,” Hodgson said.

For more information on the event visit website.