Sail Sydney - RYCT Dinghy Groups sailors impress

by Peter Campbell on 10 Dec 2010 Sail Sydney was sailed from Monday 6th to Thursday 9th December on Sydney Harbour.

A tenacious last race effort has given young Hobart sailor Dylan Gore an overall victory in the Laser 4.7 class at this week’s Sail Sydney regatta.

The 16-year-old student from Friends School has only just moved from the Sabot class to the more demanding Laser 4.7, a smaller rig version of the Olympic Laser single-handed dinghy. Sail Sydney has been his first big regatta in the class.

Going into the 10th and final race of the three day regatta, Gore was one point behind Madison Kennedy and had to finish at least four places ahead of the Queensland lass to win the regatta. With excellent tactics he gradually pulled ahead of her, consolidating his position with a brilliant last leg to finish first with Kennedy in sixth place.

Gore finished with 32 points overall, Kennedy second on 36, with another young Tasmanian Kailas Johnson, placing third in the final race to take third place overall on 42 points.

Among the other Tasmanians in the Laser 4.7 class, Sophie Chesterman finished fifth in the final race for a 10th overall and third girl. Tasmanians Nelson Brown, Hugh Chesterman and Aleksandrs Price filled the next three places.

In the Laser Radial women’s class, Emma Barton placed 21st overall, while in the Radial men Zac Pullen began the regatta with a third place and finished 10th overall.

'These kids have been out training on the Derwent before they go to school and again after school each day and on Saturday mornings for months and we should be proud of their efforts,' Tasmanian team coach Richard Scarr said at the end of the regatta.

In another good result, Alec Bailey and Henry Goodfellow finished second overall in the 420 class while Lucy Shephard and Madeline Salter finished second in he final race to place seventh overall and third all-girl crew.

Foiler Moth sailor Robbie Gough had a luckless end to an otherwise remarkably consistent regatta, with gear breakages in race nine on Wednesday and again in race 10 yesterday forcing him to retire from each race.

While he finished the final two races of the regatta with a fourth and his fifth heat win, the regatta allowed for only one discard race, costing Gough second place overall, finishing third to Scott Babbage and John Harris, in an international fleet.

Tasmania’s lone crew in the Olympic 470 class, Rohan Langford and Jack McCullum placed sixth in the final race for a 10th overall, while in the Laser big rigs, the Olympic class won by world champion Tom Slingsby, the three Tasmanians finished mid-fleet. George Jones placed 34th overall, Elliott Noye 37th and Angus Barton 39th,

Most of the Tasmanian team will now contest the Sail Melbourne Regatta next week, where RYCT member Matthew Bugg will also sail in the 2.4 metre Paralympic class.