Hardy Cup 2011 - Young talent lining up at RSYS

by Peter Campbell on 3 Feb 2011 Hardy Cup 2011 - Many of the most talented young match racing sailors from Australia and New Zealand will line up next week for the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s prestigious Hardy Cup, the ISAF Grade 3, under 25 match racing regatta on Sydney Harbour.

Five of the ten skippers, Matthew Steven (NZL), William Tiller (NZL), David Gilmour (AUS), Evan Walker (AUS) and David Chapman (AUS) have been competing in the match-racing regattas in Perth and will come to Sydney at the peak of their match racing skills.

Racing, in the RSYS Elliott 6 sports boats, will start with round-robin matches on Monday, 7 February and continue through to Thursday, 10 February.

Walker, the defending Hardy Cup champion and current Australian open match racing champion, last week won the Colin Mullins International Youth Regatta, defending local skipper David Gilmour 3-1 in the final. Both are competing in this week’s Warren Jones International Youth Regatta in Perth, with Gilmour leading and Walker in fourth place after three days of competition.

David Chapman will represent the host club after a season that has included a third in the Australian match racing championship in Hobart and wins in Royal Yachting Association National Youth Match Racing championship at Weymouth, England, and in the Polish Match Tour Act 1 at Szczecin, Poland.

Also representing the RSYS is Jordan Reece, who placed fourth in last year’s Hardy Cup and was runner-up in the 2010 Australian Youth Match Racing championship and the Harken Youth International match racing championship at the RPAYC at Pittwater, Sydney.

New Zealand, as always, is strongly represented in the Hardy Cup with Andrew Short, from Sandspit Yacht Club, the Cup winner in 2009. William Tilller, from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, has had two excellent wins in the US in the past year, the Oakcliff Invitational in New York and the prestigious Governor’s Cup at Newport Beach, California.

The only woman skipper in the Hardy Cup is New Zealander Samantha Osborne from the RNZYS who is currently on an Olympic campaign for the London 2012. Her recent record includes finishing second in the ISAF Grade 1 Buddy Melges Challenge at Winconsin, USA, and in the Harken Women’s International Match Racing regatta in Sydney.

RSYS website