NZL Sailing Team slides into Silver Fleet at Kiel

by Jodie Bakewell-White, Yachting NZ and Sail-World on 21 Jun 2010
Racing is underway for the Olympic classes at Kiel Week Regatta in Germany. A small New Zealand contingent is competing including one women’s match-racing crew helmed by Samantha Osborne, plus Mike Bullot in the Laser class and Matt Coutts in the Finn event.

Day two of Kiel Week Regatta for Olympic classes produced very light winds meaning not all classes were able to sail overnight. Of the three New Zealand entries just the women’s match racing team completed racing. For Mike Bullot in the Laser fleet, and Matt Coutts in the Finn the lack of breeze prevented racing.

The event, on now in Germany, is the sixth in the seven regatta ISAF Sailing World Cup series.

With Samantha Osborne at the helm, Jenna Hansen on main and Susannah Pyatt on the bow, the match race team sailed three races to complete the round robin.

'We completed our round robin and finished fifth in our pool with four wins and three losses and will advance to the silver fleet sail off,' they report.
In the three races sailed overnight they came up against some of the world’s best.

'We started on form, winning our first race against world number two, Claire Leroy from France. We lead from start to finish.'

'Next were the Aussies, where we continued our fine sailing, but lost on the finish line. Lastly we met the American girls, where we lost the start and were not able to recover.'

'The team is frustrated by the fact that if we had won the last race we would have advanced to the Gold Fleet. However, we'll take the lessons learnt and keep going onwards and upwards.'

Graeme Sutherland is in Germany as coach to the Women’s Match Race team.

Matt Coutts reported standing after day one has changed due to a redress hearing. The young kiwi, now campaigning in the Finn, records a third for the opening race, which means he is lying 15th after three races rather than 18th as reported yesterday.

Racing continues until Wednesday 23 June in Germany when the Medal Races take place live in front of the harbour.

Kiel Week, Germany
New Zealand standings after day two

Laser (118 boats)
6th Mike Bullot (5, 11, 1)

Women’s Match Racing (24 teams)
Samantha Osborne, Susannah Pyatt and Jenna Hansen (5th in Group B, now advancing to Silver fleet sail off)

Finn (55 boats)
15th Matt Coutts (3 RDG, 38, 12)

See the regatta website for full results and more information.

For full results and the English website http://www.kieler-woche.de/eng/englishdefault.php!click_here

About this regatta:
Kiel Week, Germany is the sixth of seven events in the 2009-10 ISAF Sailing World Cup series for Olympic class sailors. Racing starts on June 19th and runs over five days with medal races scheduled for June 23rd.