Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta- Whitty has convincing win

by Pam Scrivenor and Jennifer Crooks on 1 Mar 2010 Lucinda Whitty representing Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron has won the Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta in convincing style. Whitty sailed faultlessly making it through the entire regatta without dropping a single race, to have her name on the trophy for the second consecutive year.

Whitty, a member of the Australian Sailing Development Squad, sailed with a crew combination of Nicky Souter on main and Katie Pellew on the bow. At the presentation this evening, Whitty thanked her crew for sailing with her out of their usual positions, as the Australian Sailing Development Squad is known for making crew combinations mix-up from their preferred roles.

She congratulated all the competitors especially those developing crews who were new to match racing. 'Regatta practice is so important to a developing crew and thank you to Marinassess for supporting this regatta for so many years.'

Whitty first won this trophy in 2006 when she was a developing skipper in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Youth Sailing Academy’s Women’s Squad. Sven Runow from Marinassess presented Whitty and her crew with the trophy and prizes for their win.

The Finnish team of Silja Lehtinen and Mikaela Wulff who sailed the regatta with two Australians, Samantha Boyd and Krystal Weir finished in second place. Lehtinen was pleased with her results ahead of the New Zealand Womens Match Racing Championship in Auckland next week. Amanda Scrivenor (CYCA) with Olivia Price and Angela Farrell, sailed a solid regatta only dropping three races to Whitty (2) and Lehtinen in the round robins.

Unfortunately the second round robin could not be completed within the time limit today. The start of racing was delayed for two hours as the breeze did not fill in from the south until lunchtime and as per the sailing instructions for the event, the last time for a start signal was 1530hrs. An averaging method was used to finalise the results but Whitty was always going to be the stand out winner.

Josie Roper and Keats Thomson both skippered teams from the CYCA’s YSA Women’s Squad and finished fifth and sixth in this regatta. Both have now gained the final entries in the Harken Women’s Match Racing Regatta which begins on Wednesday 10th March, also hosted by the CYCA.

For Thomson, who is only 15 years old and the youngest skipper of the regatta, it was a great start to skippering in a match racing regatta. An ecstatic Thomson was very pleased with her team’s performance.

'One win would have been great for this regatta but to finish in sixth place was better than we expected, said Thomson.

A fun fleet race got proceedings underway after the initial training session on Friday 26th February, with Nina Curtis, a member of the ASDS and representing Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club taking the win.

The Marinassess Women’s Match Racing Regatta, was hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia over two days weekend and is sponsored by CYCA member and Marinassess Managing Director John Messenger. The regatta holds an important place in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Youth Sailing Academy calendar as it is the first regatta in the Women’s match racing season.