Australian Youth Match Racing Championship in Sydney - Day 3
by Jennifer Crooks, CYCA Media 28 Sep 2013 12:02 BST
26-29 September 2013
Gilmour continues his dominance
Sam Gilmour and his crew of Adam Negri, Cameron Seagreen and Mark Spearman, representing University of Western Australia, have remained on top of the leader board the Australian Youth Match Racing Championship after the completion of Round Robin 3.
Gilmour dropped a match early on but finished the day strongly beating nemesis Harry Price in the last race of the day.
"We had a shocker in our match against Malcolm (Parker). We dropped the spinnaker wrongly and weren't able to sort it out and lost ground because of it," Gilmour said.
"Coming back out this afternoon after the breeze had died down, we sailed really positively. We picked the shifts nicely and made the right calls – Mark was picking the shifts, Cam was trimming and doing tactics and Wads (Adam) had the bow under control.
"I'm happy to finish off the round robins strongly and am looking forward to the final day of competition tomorrow. We'll probably face-off against Malcolm in the semis," Gilmour added.
Harry Price and his crew of Angus Williams, Sam Ellis and Louie Collins, representing the host club, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, finished the round robin stage on nine points and were relegated to second place as they lost to Gilmour.
"It was good to get through all the races despite the delay. Our only loss today was to Sam. We had a few close calls in our other matches but managed to keep it together and come away with the wins," Price said.
"Our crew work has been getting better – we've started communicating well and made some good decisions. I'm looking forward to whoever I race against tomorrow and seeing what the final result is."
Malcolm Parker and his crew of William Dargaville, James Farquharson and Jack Nairn representing the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club had a much stronger performance today to finish ahead of fellow club mate Milly Bennett – edging her out of the semi-final sail-off.
"I had to beat Milly in that last race to gain my spot in the semis. It was tough racing against my training partner – the intensity was pretty high but we had fun," Parker added.
"Everything came together today – we only lost one match to Harry (Price). We had a few really close calls in our other matches but we just waited for the right moment to sneak ahead and took advantage where we could."
Principal Race Officer Denis Thompson started the first flight this morning in a light north easterly breeze. The westerly came in shortly after the start of that flight – the flight was abandoned and then re-started in the westerly breeze.
As Thompson was going into start sequence for the third flight of the day, the wind picked up gusting consistently over 25 knots and "we even saw a gust 36 knots at one point," Thompson said.
Racing was postponed for 2.5hours whilst the Race Committee waited for the westerly to die down. "Once the breeze had settled to around 15-20 knots, we pushed through the last three flights of Round Robin 3. The breeze started to drop away and managed to get the last flight away in 8-9 knots of south westerly breeze," Thompson added.
The Australian Youth Match Racing Championship is hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and sailed on the new fleet of Elliott 7s.
Racing is scheduled to continue tomorrow, Sunday 29 September, at 1015hrs with the semi-finals and finals being conducted. The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting slightly cooler temperatures but an otherwise sunny day with west to south westerly winds of 10-15 knots become variable about 10 knots in the morning then becoming north to north easterly 10 to 15 knots late in the afternoon.
Racing will be conducted in the vicinity of Rushcutters Bay and live results from each match will be posted on the CYCA website via www.cyca.com.au/youth/australian-match-racing-championships-2013/youth-live-results