Buddy Melges Challenge – Souter and crew dominate

by Craig Heydon on 26 Aug 2011 Buddy Melges Challenge, an ISAF Grade 1 women’s match racing event, is currently underway in Sheboygan, Wisconsin USA.

Australia’s two Women’s Match Racing crews have won their way through to the quarterfinals, following another impressive day on the water.

The two crews finished the round robin phase of the regatta first and second with Nicky Souter, Jessica Eastwell and Katie Spithill at the top of the table with Olivia Price, Nina Curtis and Lucinda Whitty just behind in second.

Souter and crew continued their dominant form from the opening two days, finishing with an impressive 15 wins from 15 starts.

Price, Curtis and Whitty were not far behind, with 13 wins from their 15 races, with their only losses against Souter and American Genny Tulloch.

Both crews qualified for the quarter-finals and at the end of day three are in tight battles to progress to the semi-finals.

Souter, Eastwell and Spithill are currently tied one-all in the best of five quarter-final with Brazilian Renata Decnop while Price and crew will be pushing hard on day four to overcome their current two-nil deficit to France’s Julie Bossard.

'Today we finished off the round robin with four more wins to complete the round undefeated with 15 wins and take first place,' said Spithill. 'Nicky has been doing a great job getting off the start line which has made the tactics easier.

'This afternoon we started sailing the quarter-finals against Brazil,' she said. 'We lost the first race due to an unforced error, and in a dying breeze and short course we never got the lead back.

'In the second race we won off the line and kept our lead around the course just before the breeze disappeared altogether and they called it a day,' said Spithill. 'We’ve had some great races so far and are looking forward to finishing the quarter-finals tomorrow.'

Price, Curtis and Whitty will be looking to push their quarterfinal to five races on Friday after falling two-nil behind the French crew lead by Julie Bossard.

'We had a strong finish to the round robin winning the final four races,' said Curtis. 'This placed us second overall in the round robin just behind our fellow Aussies. We ended up on the same points as American Anna Tunniclife however we won the race against her during the round robin so this seeded us ahead of her in the overall placing.

'Being in second place we were to race off the seventh place getter Julie Bossard in the quarterfinals for a place in the semi,' she said. 'In a dying sea breeze of between two and five knots and extremely choppy conditions we unfortunately lost the first two races, however we managed to take away some valuable lessons in the specific conditions.

'Tomorrow we’ll be finishing off our quarterfinals against Julie, it is a best of five series so we have three races to win first up tomorrow to advance to the semi finals,' she said.

Racing continues in Wisconsin on Friday with the Buddy Melges Challenge to conclude on Saturday 27 Full results
Australian Sailing Team website