Honda Marine has back to back wins in JJ Giltinan Trophy
by Suellen Hurling / Auckland Skiff League 16 Mar 2020 04:29 PDT
17 March 2020
Honda Marine about to grab the lead from Noakesailing during race 2 of the 2020 18ft Skiff JJ Giltinan Championship © Frank Quealey
Honda Marine backed up a great first race of the 2020 JJ Giltinan 18' Skiff Championship by claiming the second race of the series in a sensational manner, finishing 1m 46s ahead of the second boat, Winning Group (Seve Jarvin , Scott Babbage, Sam Newton)
But it didn’t start out easily for the Honda Marine team (Dave McDiarmid, Matt Steven and Brad Collins), after not having the greatest start the team made the call to tack away, before they could get underway and into the groove.
“After clearing a a boat off our windward rack on the start line we got to racing,” said helm Dave McDiarmid.
“There were plenty of passing lanes with the breeze all over the place so we had to stay on our toes.”
“Brad saved us from one big mistake when we realised we were not laying a headland down wind. We had a bit of work to do to get kite up, then gybe, kite down, then kite up again. We were just checking our fitness levels!” continued Dave.
Maersk Line (Peron Pearse, Eli Liefting and Harry Clark) had a tough day on the water.
“We felt like we sailed fast enough in testing conditions but couldn’t make it up past the back of the front pack,” said Peron.
“Definitely looking forward to coming back after a lay day tomorrow.”
C-Tech (Alex Vallings, Sam Trethewey, Matt Coutts) had another challenging day. When asked how it went overall, Alex said “I’d rather be on Honda! Thanks goodness it’s a Lay Day tomorrow, yay!”
NZL Overall Results
1st – Honda Marine (1,1)
17th – Maersk Line (13,14)
20th – C-Tech (17,16)
For full results click here