2019 Australian Sailing Youth Championships at Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania - Day 1
by Peter Campbell 11 Jan 04:28 PST
10-14 January 2019
Day 1 - 2019 Australian Sailing Youth Championships © Beau Outteridge
They waited and waited for the wind, but when it piped late this afternoon it reward the 230 sailors with some exhilarating rides on day one of the Australian Sailing Youth Championships on Hobart's River Derwent.
Most starts were delayed by an hour-and-a-half, but it was after 4pm when the Lasers Radials and 4.7s finally got a proper race start. The 70-odd single-handed dinghies were still competing well after six o'clock in a 'twilight race.'
From way down the river, south-east of the Garrow Light, for most of the Laser sailors it would have meant nearly seven hours on the water.
Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania sailing manager Nick Hutton described the opening day of Australia's most significant regatta for off-the-beach dinghies as 'difficult, to say the least... we got two races in for the Nacra 15s and 420s...now ask me how many races we tried to start... the answer is six!"
The ENE breeze filled in enough by 2.30pm to give stable conditions for the 29ers, Bic Techo 293 and Bic Tech Plus sailboards, 420s and Nacra 15s, and they all enjoyed a couple of hours of high-performance racing.
In the 29ers, Lachlan Brewer and Flynn Twomey from Middle Harbour Yacht Club head the boys division with a 1-2 score on day one, closely followed by New Zealanders Campbell Stanton and William Shapland with a 2-3 results.
Australian champions Archie Cropley and Max Paul are third overall, today scoring two fourth places.
Tasmania's strongest contingent is in the 29ers and after two races, there were five local crews in the top 13 boats of the 32 boat fleet.
Oscar O'Donoghue and Rupert Hamilton were fifth in the boys while Australian female champions Alice Buchanan and Dervla Duggan were sixth overall and first all-girl crew.
Charlie Goodfellow and Jacob McConaghy were seventh, Ethan Galbraith and Charles Zeeman 12th.
Queenslander Hamish Swain had two straight wins in the Bic Techno Plus sailboards, with Matthew Quinlan (NSW) and Vaughan O'Shea (NSW) second and third.
While no girls contested the Techno Plus, three are in the Bic Techno 293 fleet, with Josephine Kirby (Qld) the top placed girl. In the boys, Benjamin Waters (WA) and Kai Morris Marns each had a win and third place with Jude Smale (Vic) third with a 2-4 result today.
In the Laser Radials, West Australian Zac Littlewood continued to show the form he displayed in the nationals at Devonport early in the week, scoring two straight wins here in the Youth Championships.
Frazer Brew (Qld) had a 3-2 score to second, just ahead of Otto Henry (NSW) who has just moved from 420s to Lasers. He finished second and fourth in today's two races.
There were two winners in the Laser 4.7s Daniel Costandi (NSW) and Caleb Palmer (Qld). However, Costandi also had a second place to give him 3 points to Palmer's 6 points.
NSW girl sailor Brooke Wilson sailed impressively to be third overall with 7 points from a 4-3 score with Kristen Wadley second girl on 11 points and sixth in combined standings.
The Nacra 15s, which all sail with a mixed boy-girl crew, has been thrown open after two races which produced two different winners, two different second placetterss and two different third boats.
Georgia Payne and Kai Coleman (WA) head the leader board with a 1-3 score, Ashleigh Swadling and Nathan Bryant (NSW) had 4-1 result and Australian champions Will Cooley and Bec Hancock (NSW) managed 2-4.
There were also different race winners in the 420s, with Ryan Littlechild and Jack Ferguson (NSW) heading the scoreboard with a 1-3 result while the race two winners, Cole Tapper and Tyler (Creevey) copped 18 points in race one.
Second overall are Ben Hinks and Alex Magarey (SA) today placings 2-8. Third are Marcello Torre and Tom Larkings (WA/NSW) with a 5-6 start to the regatta.
Find full results at ryct.org.au/sailing/australianyouthchampionships