ILCA NZ Nationals: Glorious Bay of Islands conditions to stretch the legs

Duko Bos hogs top of ILCA 7 leaderboard - Lanzarote International Regatta 2025 © Sailing Energy / Lanzarote Sailing Center

Two great races in solid hiking conditions today for the first day of the NZ ILCA championships, and already its clear that the form book is right on the money and there are going to be some really close contests for top honours in many of the fleets.

The forecast rain held off all day and we were treated to a glorious but quite demanding 10 to 15 knot NNW breeze in the race area off Russell, with tide, shifts and light patches proving challenging even to the worlds best ILCA sailors, and sufficient for a few swimmers to take to the water in the pelotons.

In the ILCA 7 the pro's predictably led the way. Duko Bos from the Netherlands prevailed in race 1, and backed it up with a 2nd in race two to lead overall by a single point from kiwi George Gautrey, who won race two after scoring a 3rd in race 1. The top 5 after day 1 is rounded out by a trio of overseas stars, Finn Lynch (IRL), Micky Beckett (GBR) and Ryan Lo (SNG), with defending NZ champion Caleb Armit just a few points back in 6th. In the ILCA 7 Masters ex open world champ Nik Burfoot holds a narrow lead over impressive Aussie visitor Sean Atherton-Feeney (GM), who is followed by past multiple ILCA master World Champion Scott Leith (M).

In the ILCA 6 Open it was again the stars that shone. With exactly the same race results as the ILCA 7 leaders, leaders Erika Reineke (USA) took the first race and followed with 2nd in race two while and Frances Beebe (AUS) the took the second race after placing 3rd in the opening race. They are closely followed by NZ women's Olympic rep Greta Pilkington and ex ILCA 6 men's World Champ George Lane (NZ) in 4th. This leading bunch is followed by a tight group of youth sailors, with Australian Jackson Black leading the NZ trio of Aaron Begic, Toby Dunn and Miro Luxford, who are all tied on points. They are followed by leading Youth Women, current U17 world champ Chloe Turner.

In the ILCA 6 Masters defending champion Phil Wild (M) managed pick up where he left off last year and continue his dominance of the group with 2 bullets, closely followed by Raglan's Dave Johnson(M) who was 2nd in both races. Leading GM Werner Henig is 3rd overall, a point up on Dunedin's Dragos Blaga, while leading GGM Graeme Tee from Whakatane is 5th overall.

A great contest is already developing in the ILCA 4, with Nathan Soper, Amy Wu and Sofia Turner all tied on points at the top of the table. They are followed by a tie for 4th between our two recent Oceania solidarity sailors, Ellie Tapper and Kiera Dimock, while Louis Yang, Madi Smith and Patrick Kell traded places to be close on points after the first days racing.

Day 2 looks like an interesting day weather wise, with very different predictions for both strength and direction across a range of computer models, so it looks likely to be a challenging three races for all, sailors and the race committee alike.

Results and Noticeboard: ilca.nz