NZ ILCA (Laser) Nationals Day 1 - Napier locals to the fore

Napier turned on a lovely warm day with a light sea breeze for the opening day of the 2024 ILCA (Laser) NZ Nationals.

A bit of high cloud made it very humid and prevented the sea breeze ever getting much over 8 knots for the first two scheduled races of the contest. Th breeze was quite patchy with a small chop, but it provided great conditions for close racing right through the 100 strong fleet.

In the 47 boat ILCA 6 fleet it was a fantastic day for the Napier locals, with Finn Balchin taking out Race 1, Winston Liesebach Race 2 and Rose Dickey leading the youth girls at the end of the day. Both Finn and Winston had good results in the days other race, to sit second and third overall, but neither were quite good enough to prevent Louie Poletti from Murrays Bay leading overall, as well as being the leading youth boy, after scoring a 2nd place in both races.

The first three are followed closely by an extremely close contest for the leading woman's spot.

Naomi Ferrissey ended the day a single point ahead of Fiji's Sophia Morgan and Greta Pilkington, who recently qualified NZ for the Olympics. Both Sophia and Greta are on 12 points and as both are freshly returned from the World ILCA 6 Champs in Argentina there is sure to be some close racing in that group over the balance of the contest. Reigning World ILCA 6 men's champion George Lane was heard to comment that he did "not find the conditions easy", and sits 7th overall.

There are many familiar names at the head of the ILCA 6 Masters, with Murrays Bays Master Phil Wild using his great downwind speed to ensure two bullets. He leads fellow Masters Ed Tam and Dave Johnson at the top of the table. The leading GM, in 4th place overall, is Hamilton's Werner Hennig, while the leading GGM is Graeme Tee from Ohope in 6th overall. Helen Spencer is the leading Women's Masters. A great 6th in the first race set her up for the day, although consistency eluded her, with her race 2 somewhat less successful!

The small but high quality ILCA 4 fleet shared the starting line with the ILCA 6 Masters. Tom Pilkington looks to be carrying on the family dynasty of success in ILCA racing winning both races and lead overall. Hermione Aris sits second and is the leading women.

In the ILCA 7 fleet the 26 Masters and Open sailors are sailing together as a single fleet. With our top six Olympic sailors all in Adelaide for the Open worlds the title will go to someone new this year.

After two races leading Master Scott Leith, and leading Open sailor George Pilkington are tied at the top of the table with a win and a second each after 2 very tightly fought races. Third overall, and being welcomed back to the ILCA nationals after an absence of quite a few years, is ex Open World Champion, now Master, Nik Burfoot. Open sailor Max Faulkner sits in a solid 4th overall followed by a group of past masters winners; GM's Andrew Dellabarca and Rohan Lord and Onerahi Master Kris Decke. We are welcoming 2 Irish Masters visitors this year, who are having a stop off on their way to the Masters World in Adelaide. Having spun us a good Irish yarn, telling us its way too cold at home and that they had done no preparation and have "hardly sailed", Bill O'Hara had really solid days to be leading the GGM's in 10th overall, while I suspect Conrad is looking for a wee bit more breeze to stamp his authority on the contest.

So a great first day to kick off the 2024 nationals. The weather forecast for the next three days looks promising, with moderate breezes predicted, so we hope to see tomorrows 3 races completed on scheduled.