Etchells Australian Nationals 2026 at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club - Overall
by Tom Hodge 25 Feb 21:55 PST
23-25 February 2026
It all comes down to this. The rigging dock was quiet in the morning sheen. Boats filed off in orderly procession, long before the start would be called.
Pairs of boats worked their ways up and down the race area. Crews muttered and fiddled with millimetres of adjustments. Skippers watched the water hawkishly, feeling the wind on their faces, searching for clues.
Race 1
Such was the desire for the boat end start that several boats chose to wait behind the boat and start second / third row in order to tack out to the right early. Chilly Bin and Forte led the right group into the Applecross shoreline, tacking back atop the fleet with a significant lift off the shoreline. So confident was van der Struyf in the shoreline breeze, that he split further from the fleet and set up wide right. Forte, on the other hand, returned early to cross the rhumb and played left in the final third. A late shift to the left vindicated the left group's decision, with the top 3 of Yo!, The Don, and Azure, coming from this side, and Forte rounding 4th. The shoreline riders were punished. Regatta leader Manford found himself buried in the mid-fleet, and with 4.5 points to make up between them, 2nd place Pratt and his crew on Azure had to capitalise.
On the run, every boat straight set, except for the red kite of Barracuda. A glamour gust early didn't prove to last, as what looked to be a chance to sail around the fleet turned into a tooth and nail fight as a dozen boats descended to the gate as one. Consequent of this congestion, the fleet split.
Pratt went left, and dropped two places by the top mark, fourth. Barracuda, profiting from its stint out right, rounded the top in fifth, and after, Manford's The Croc had worked its way back up to 6th. The rubber band began to stretch as Barracuda gybed out again, while Azure took a low straight line, and The Croc took a high line at the head of a tight cluster of starboard-gybe boats. Pratt was pleased to see Ratpack, Highlander, Chilly Bin, and Briar Patch all attacking inside Manford's line as they all sailed off away from the pressure building on the left. Azure gybed midway down the run and crossed the left group of boats, passing on Port behind the sterns of Yo!, The Don, Barracuda, and Forte, whom had all profited from the left breeze, then returning on the boat lay to finish 4th.
An unbelievably tense run into the finish ensued. After the front five, the next seven boats finished within 1.5 boatlengths. The Croc was on the outer end, with the hottest angle, as the blue kites on port end soaked in their pressure to the mid-line. This could be the championship, the sacrifice of a strong lead, the catastrophic setup for a final race redemption contest for the boat that had led the regatta all week. Somehow, The Croc edged ahead, from underneath to barely just in front. Photos showed the margin at less than half a meter. The equation was set for the final race of the series:
Race 2
Predictably, Pratt and Manford started next to each other. Manford to leeward, clear, Pratt above, holding up the fleet, with 3rd placed Robson above him. Though a gap existed between them, Manford steadily climbed and burned Pratt into the fleet, forcing a bailout tack that saw four sterns ducked. Now it was Robson's turn to sit above Manford, with The Don directly above him and Manford sailing high and fast in clear air, the same outcome looked inevitable. Robson's 'balls of steel' manoeuvre to tack behind the Don was punished by a simo-tack from both the Don and Manford, slamming the door and looking to lock the standings into the top mark. The only boat outside Manford, Kitto's Ratpack, was looking good to mount their own attack on the podium as Robson was as well and truly squeezed out by all the gas. Eventually, he was forced to a clearing tack in search of a lane, as the fleet continued to sail away.
In the middle right, Pratt hadn't found enough to undo early damage, and upon his return to the left, was forced to tack under this race's top three.
Perhaps seeking his own Taipei 101 Netflix special, Manford just climbed and climbed and climbed. Rounding the mark dead on the stern of the leading Kitto. Pratt avoided a near horror show as he managed to just tack on the bow of a solid wall of starboard boats, and round the mark in 4th.
Robson, on the other hand, lived the nightmare. Entering from port, he was forced to divert around the wall, in a manner that resulted in a two-turn penalty above the separator mark. He set his kite in second last, watching on as Kitto wrestled with an aggressively pursuant Manford for the lead. As The Don and Yo! Had gybed out in search of midriver breeze, Pratt found himself a mere boat length astern of Manford. With a superior rounding, Pratt set himself on a line above Manford, and managed to climb to a clear lane 3-lengths above. While the rest of the fleet went right, the duo powered left. In a superior display of straight line skill, Manford climbed up onto Pratt's line, and tacked to converge with the fleet. Pratt extended another 300 meters before returning, with leverage and a dark puff from the left. At the cross between Kitto & Manford, Kitto, having lost a boat length off his lead, tacked into a tight lee bow on Manford. Pratt smiled - it was time Azure had a taste of its own medicine. The complication in this puzzle was, even if Pratt could get ahead of Azure, he needed to put two boats between them for victory. And neither The Don or Yo! we're doing well enough to threaten an upset.
Until The Don went into low mode, punching forward, and closing meters on the leaders to discover new pressure off the shore. On the starboard lay line, The Don pressed Manford into a tight fetching line. Pratt, desperate, and coming off a high port entry, tacked directly under The Don on the edge of the zone. During his kite set, the leading Kitto, heard significant yelling as the three yachts trailing him rounded. Manford's lead could be measured on a ruler.
Pressure does a funny thing to sailors. What was once easy becomes difficult. And what becomes difficult has a way of snowballing.
Three hundred meters from the rounding mark, the head of Manford's white spinnaker was billowing through the air. Wineglass, dropped halyard, light airs. Disaster. Finally, the spinnaker sit with a gentle smoothing of crinkles. Looking across to his left, Manford was now dismayed at the sight of Pratt's grizzled mug staring back at him, dead in the eye. Blue kite full, the two boats were now neck and neck, locked in competition, all the way down the run.
At the bottom, Manford went for a starboard rounding, forcing Pratt to follow or split. Pratt gybed for the port rounding, and both boats rounded simultaneously. A hundred meters gage between them, Pratt tacked back onto the long starboard tack. Manford, confident in his reading of the weather, and heartened by the relative failure of The Don to stick with them, extended 90% of the way to the port lay of the upwind finish. He didn't count on the light from the right. Or Pratt crossing him clear ahead. Or The Don, having extended further right than Pratt, forcing him into a double tack. Suddenly Manford found himself with the second placed boat ahead of him, The Don leebowing him, and Screaming Plum, a boat of rare sight to the front group, coming from nowhere hard on the port lay line.
At the finish line, the most interesting move the regatta eventuated. Kitto, clear ahead, finished. Pratt, clear second, didn't. A length from the line he sat, sails flogging, as 3, 4, and 5 advanced.
The Don was storming over The Croc, and Screaming Plum absolutely ripping in with a gust from the left. Every flog of Pratt's sail was a calculated risk - disturb The Don and Manford's air enough to allow Screaming Plum into the equation, while leaving enough time to get across the finish line ahead of all three boats.
Perhaps it was one flap too many. All four boats crossed the finish in a blur. Nobody celebrated, nobody knew what had happened. The procession into the bay was awkward, uncertain. While a gusty line of Nor'east pressure swirled through the boats around Point Resolution, questions flew through the sailors' heads.
The puzzle of this regatta was still unsolved.
Had Manford done enough across the finish line of the 8th start? Had Pratt set his sails soon enough to defeat The Don and Screaming Plum?
By virtue of Pratt's dead heat with Robson in the 4th race, there was half a point in it either way.
Even Kitto was warily unsure. He had climbed to 3rd by offsetting a disastrous 10th in race 8 with a bullet to Highlander's 9 & 8 for the day, though with all eyes on the 2-3-4 finish, he hadn't taken note of Highlander's placing.
As the media boat hit the dock, scores were released online.
Race 8:
Pratt 4, Manford 6. He had done it! Burial in that fleet would've been doom.
Race 9:
Kitto 1
Pratt 2
The Don... 2
Screaming Plum... 2
Manford 5
For a three way tie, the point scores of places 2, 3, 4 were added and averaged.
Thus, the points awarded to Pratt: 3
Manford, having rounded the final bottom mark in 2nd, had slipped three places. Screaming Plum and The Don, though, had seemingly broken Pratt on the finish line. His valiant catch up was in vain, one flap too many.
The final overall point scores:
Manford 24
Pratt 24.5
Kitto 33
Or so it seemed.
After a busy time at the WA State Championships, Chief Umpire Richard Goldsmith had enjoyed a very quiet Nationals regatta. He patiently waited out the protest time limit in the jury room at RFBYC's newly refurbished junior clubhouse. A sheet of paper came across his desk. Scoring Enquiry, Race 9, submitted: Pratt.
Here we go.
A discussion of evidence ensued. From the media boat, a series of photographs documented the moment. These photographs were taken a few boat lengths above the finish line axis, thus couldn't be trusted for final placings, due to parallax error, though they did provide some clues as to the proceeding of events. The Vakaros tracker data, new to the Australian Etchells fleet, had a margin of rounding error, to account for drift and the wobble of the flag. In the Sailing Instructions, the Vakaros data was specified as absolute in the context of starting, but no explicit reference was made in relation to the finishing. By the eye, it was too close to call, a member of the race committee team later stated that it appeared to all happen at once. What was not in doubt was that Manford placed 5th, behind the three tied boats.
While the media team were not privy to the proceedings inside the room, we are aware that the final decision was based off the precise Vakaros Data, without rounding. The final margin between Pratt and The Don was less than a quarter second. Between The Don and Screaming Plum, half a second. Manford, about a second behind Screaming Plum. Within the margins of three bees caught doing the Eagle Rock at a Sharpie regatta, Pratt had miraculously pulled it off.
Pratt 23.5
Manford 24
Manford was gracious in defeat. Despite the close loss, he maintained that Pratt had sailed fantastically well, and lauded praise on the host club, volunteers, fellow competitors, and longtime crew members Dean McCaullay and Nick Gray. Kitto's podium placing too brought light, as young ex-match racing guns Ethan Prieto Low and Adam Brenz Verca, signalled positive signs for the future of the class.
In his acceptance speech, Pratt revealed the conversation between Pratt and Manford on the tense final run was largely about gin and tonics - well deserved after a long week of tight racing. The two know each other well, and have traded many race leads in the past. Young lad Lawson McCaullay smiled on from the seating as Father and Son duo Michael and Ethan placed their hands upon the trophy, a coup for the Royal Perth Yacht Club. It was Pratt's first time upon the trophy bearing the likes of Bertrand, Taylor, Slingsby, and Beashel. Surely, with a taste of success, he will be back for more.
Overall, it was a fantastic regatta with great camaraderie, incredibly tight racing, and a variety of conditions.